Dec 28, 2020
If 2020 seemed like a daily flat tire, begin the New Year with a nutritious edible garden and exercise. Gardening is Mother Nature’s Peloton. Who needs Jenny Craig when homegrown fresh produce is stuffed with healthy low-calorie options?
Growing the right foods may even save or extend your life. Fred Hoffman, Sacramento’s highest-profile gardener, confronted a life-threatening health crisis in 2012. He discovered he had Type 2 diabetes while preparing for quadruple-bypass heart surgery.
It was an abrupt life-or-death wakeup call for the producer/host of the “Garden Basics with Farmer Fred” podcast and radio programs, “The KFBK Garden Show” and “Get Growing with Farmer Fred” on Talk 650 KSTE.
Dec 28, 2020
In 2006, my husband Jim and I embarked on a dream-of-a-lifetime project. My career prior to publishing was interior design, and I always wanted to design and build a home from scratch. Before the age of 30, I had already bought, rehabbed and sold four houses. When we moved to McKinley Park in 1989, we remodeled a lovely circa 1925 Tudor home over the course of 16 years.
While my wish to design and build was brewing, Jim made it clear he loved our home, our street and our neighborhood. He’d worked for IBM and was transferred every few years. Now he wanted to put down roots. And as luck would have it, we both were able to find satisfaction.
Nov 27, 2020
With three growing boys and two big dogs, homeowners Kristen and Eric Bassett were running out of space in their 47th Street home.
“It served our family well,” Kristen says. “But as our boys got bigger, the house got smaller.”
Wanting to stay in East Sacramento, the family came across a duplex for sale on a stately street only a few blocks from their home. “We obviously were not going to move into a duplex, but we saw the potential. We could make it exactly what we wanted and needed,” Kristen says.
Nov 27, 2020
Wacky gardening tools are lurking in dark corners of garages, kitchen drawers, yard sales and local stores. The tool arsenal is more than pricey pruners, digging forks and hand trowels.
One fine morning I stopped at a yard sale in East Sacramento. I spotted two old school metal mailboxes, the type with the red flag that signifies outgoing mail. Both were purchased for a grand total of $5. They are extremely useful for tool storage in a main garden area and will save countless trips back to the house, shed or garage for a needed tool. Mount them on a post for the true postal experience. Stow gloves, hand pruners, and other small gear and accessories.
Oct 27, 2020
The Carlaw, one of the newest additions to Sacramento’s vibrant R Street Corridor, is a 26-unit building with apartments above and offices and retail below. The complex is across from Fox & Goose Public House and Arthouse Gallery & Studios, and walking distance from Warehouse Artist Lofts and Ice Blocks, both with abundant shopping, dining and entertainment.
“I pretty much have been a part of this community for a long time,” says David Saalsaa, who moved into a studio apartment at The Carlaw this past August. “I have always been impressed with how they developed the R Street corridor.”
Oct 27, 2020
Gardening holds hands with serotonin levels. It’s an organic neurotransmitter, relaying a sense of well-being after a few snips of hand pruners. During the darkness of pandemic and politics, we can discover peace among plants, solace in soil.
What personal enjoyment do you harvest from time spent in the garden? Well, it’s personal, but a few folks opened their hearts.
