Sustainability Interest Group - City of Sacramento’s Urban Forest Plan and **Crop Swap Special Request**
Lucy, Burke@CalRecycle
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Grass Roots Circular Economy and Climate Action |
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Join the Sustainability
Interest Group at CalEPA to discuss sustainable |
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In our last meeting |
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Or call in (audio only) +1 916-619-7284, 955660965# United States, Sacramento Phone Conference ID: 955 660 965# Find a local number | Reset PIN
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City of Sacramento’s Urban Forest Plan |
Tuesday, June 11
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The City of Sacramento has launched the draft Sacramento Urban Forest Plan for public review and comment. This document will become the City’s primary planning tool for the protection, expansion, maintenance, sustainability, and enhancement of trees in Sacramento. The plan calls for increasing the citywide tree canopy from 19 percent to 35 percent by 2045, which requires planting and maintaining an additional 25,000 trees per year. The city maintains about 10 percent of an estimated 1 million trees in Sacramento’s urban forest extending across public property, private land, residential yards, parks, natural areas, streetscapes, schools, and commercial businesses. Planting efforts to hit the canopy goal will require engagement from the City, public, and other entities. Efforts will be prioritized in neighborhoods with the lowest canopy levels, highest heat exposure, and most socio-economically vulnerable residents.
Many Sacramento residents and civic leaders, particularly women, have advocated for protecting the city’s ecology and trees. C.K. McClatchy, the editor of the Sacramento Bee from 1883 to 1936, also became a leading advocate on behalf of Sacramento’s trees and is credited with promoting the City’s reputation as a “City of Trees” in the paper, as well as publishing front-page obituaries for trees cut down or vandalized to raise public awareness and pride in city trees. Comments on the draft Sacramento Urban Forest Plan will be accepted until June 21.
Rachel Patten, City of Sacramento Sustainability Program Specialist, will provide an overview of the City’s Urban Forest Plan and answer any questions you may have. Rachel has nine years of experience helping local governments and non-profits with sustainability program development and project management. Specializing in Urban Forestry, Rachel has used her experience to manage the development of community-led environmental justice programs, municipal community forestry programs, and Urban Forest Master plans including the draft Sacramento Urban Forest Plan. In her current role, Rachel leads the Office of Climate Action and Sustainability, which is tasked with advancing the City’s carbon neutrality goals and establishing centralized climate leadership across the City organization. |
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Employee Open House |
Tuesday, June 18
11am-2pm
CalEPA building, First Floor
1001 I Street, Sacramento 95814
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As part of the Employee Open House, Tuesday June 18, the Sustainability Interest Group will have a table during this three-hour event. We will need two volunteers each hour to represent our group. Please email burke...@calrecycle.ca.gov to volunteer with your supervisor’s permission. |
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Crop Swap Special Request |
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During the same Employee Open House, between noon-1pm, we will have our first crop swap since the pandemic in 2020! Come bring any excess produce from your home garden and swap them for home grown produce you want. Let’s make this happen! |
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How to Keep Your Garden Happy |
Tuesday, July 9
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You may have noticed the link to Sacramento Digs Gardening Articles toward the bottom of this group’s meeting invitations. For our upcoming meeting, Debbie Arrington with Sacramento Digs Gardening will share her decades of gardening experience in California, her insights into maintaining a summer garden through the heat of July if not throughout the year, how to maximize your available space to get the most out of your garden, and all the tricks and tips she has learned over the years to keep your plants happy. She loves to cook what she grows so she’ll also share her best tips on turning your harvest into a tasty meal. So, come with questions you never thought to ask!
Debbie Arrington is a national award-winning garden writer and food expert, and is also a master rosarian. She has decades of gardening experience in California, most of that in Sacramento's grower-friendly climate. She believes all gardening is local and loves to cook what she grows. She is also a longtime journalist (at the Sacramento Bee and elsewhere) who believe Sacramento deserves local gardening coverage. |
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In Our Last Meeting |
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In our last meeting, Anna Wong and Adrienne Harris (ARB) gave a great presentation on the availability of electric vehicle chargers throughout the state, changing charging standards, the true sustainability of electric vehicles, incentives, and the EV charging process. They answered several questions and attendees shared lots of great information and resources like The Big Switch - Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University SIPA | CGEP and an interesting Yale e360 article about drawing key minerals including lithium and magnesium from ocean water desalination plant residue. |
Organic Waste
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Sacramento restaurants are offering cheap food via this
app. |
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Sacramento Bee, June 4, 2024
A number of Sacramento-area restaurants and bakeries are offering heavily discounted foods via a popular smartphone app.
Too Good To Go, which advertises itself as “marketplace for surplus food,” aims to help reduce food waste by giving eateries a chance to sell their extra items for less.
Reddit users recently raved about the deals they’ve landed using the Too Good To Go app. |
Organic Waste
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Watermelon Rinds: The Secret Superfood We've Been Throwing Out |
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Daily Meal, July 15, 2023
Few things feel better than eating a juicy watermelon when the temperature is soaring. This delicious fruit is 91% water, perfect for quenching thirst and keeping you hydrated. But did you know that watermelon rinds are edible, too? The rinds are chock-full of fiber, amino acids, minerals, and antioxidants, according to 2020 research published in the journal Molecules. These bioactive compounds may protect against heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and other chronic ailments. |
Plastic/Packaging
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Most US sandwich baggies
contain toxic PFAS |
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The Guardian, March 14, 2024
Most of the nation’s plastic sandwich baggies contain toxic PFAS “forever chemicals”, an analysis suggests, raising questions about the products’ safety in the US.
Testing of 11 types of baggies made by major producers showed high levels of a marker of PFAS in nine. |
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Sacramento Area Landscape Rebate Programs |
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· State of California Turf Replacement Program · Sacramento County Water Agency Cash for Grass o $2000 rebate · Sacramento Suburban Water District Rebate includes:
· Sacramento City’s River-Friendly Landscape Rebates cover a maximum of: o $3,000 at $1.50 per square of grass converted on the front, side and back yard o $400 for materials used to convert to drip irrigation for front, side or back yard o $400 for adding EPA WaterSense Labeled Smart Irrigation Controller. · Carmichael Water District Turf Replacement Rebate · Citrus Heights Water District Rebate Program
· Folsom Cash for Grass Turf Replacement Rebate
· Placer County Lawn Replacement Rebate Program · Roseville Cash for Grass Utility Rebates · West Sacramento Smart Controller Rebate and Water Wise House Call · Woodland Mulch Rebate · Yolo County Water Conservation Rebate Program |
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See the edible low water use plant example found in the City of Sacramento’s River Friendly Landscape Plant List below.
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Chinese Jujube |
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Size: 32 x 23 feet Water Requirement: Low Type: Tree Edible Uses: Fruit - raw or cooked. Mealy and sweet. A sourish-sweet flavor. The fruit can be eaten fresh, dried like dates or cooked in puddings, cakes, breads, jellies, soups etc. The dried fruit has the nicest taste. The fruits are often left to become wrinkled and spongy, which increases their sweetness, and are then eaten fresh or cooked. The dried fruit can also be ground into a powder. This powder is used in the preparation of 'kochujang', a fermented hot pepper-soybean paste that resembles miso. Fruits contain one or two seeds. The fruit contains about 8.7% sugars, 2.6% protein, 1.4% ash, 1.7% pectin and 1.3% tannin. The fruit is about 25mm long, though it can be larger in cultivated varieties. The fruit can be used as a coffee substitute. Physical Characteristics: Ziziphus jujuba is a deciduous Tree, growing at a fast rate.
It is in flower from April to May, and the seeds ripen in October. The species is hermaphrodite (has both male and female organs) and is pollinated by insects. The plant is self-fertile. Known Hazards: Caution in diabetics on allopathic medication. |
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June Gardening Tips |
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Stake or Cage Tomatoes |
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If you haven’t done it already, stake or cage your tomatoes now before you damage growing roots and the plants begin to sprawl to avoid entanglements. |
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Prune tomato low branches and suckers |
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To avoid introducing disease, prune low branches that are close to touching the ground. Also, if your tomato sprouts a branch angling up at a 45-degree angle between the main stem and a horizontal branch (bottom right photo), cut off that sucker for indeterminant tomato plants and below the first flower node for determinant tomato plants. It will only draw unnecessary resources away from your tomatoes otherwise. |
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Zucchini Harvesting |
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Harvest your zucchini before they get more than 8 to 10 inches long for maximum flavor. |
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Prune your Zucchinis |
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Prune Zucchini to increase air flow, increase production, and prevent powdery mildew and prevent blossom end rot. |
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Prune Grape Vines |
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Prune grape vines back to one to two leaves beyond the fruit to prevent disease and let the vine concentrate on producing more and bigger grapes than new growth vines seeking a foothold in all directions. You can also save those freshly cut grape vines (and apple tree branches) for any pet rabbits you may know. Your grape canopy should have about 60% exposure to the sun to prevent fungus and improve flavor. You can also thin your grapes by pruning off mildewed grape clusters and shoots with too many grape clusters. |
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Girdle Grapevines |
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You can increase your grape yield and size by girdling grapevines like this around the end of May at the start of or during bloom. Girdling means cutting through the “phloem” tissues below the bark to block the downward (basal) flow of sugars and other compounds produced in the leaves. |
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Prevent Codling Moth in your Apples |
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If your apples look bruised on one side every year as in the photo below, you may have codling moths laying eggs in your young apple fruits. Bagging your apples as they’re beginning to fruit is the only nonchemical control method that is effective enough to be used alone and in higher population situations. However, it is quite time consuming to apply the bags. Several other options include trunk banding, sanitation, trapping, and biological control. |
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Place Mulch Around Trees |
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Add three inches of mulch under your fruit trees and shrubs to keep weeds down. Keep a six-inch ring of mulch away from the trunks to avoid rot. |
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Check out the companion plants along with the harvest and plant guide below for plants to plant by seed or transplant. Consider companion planting caveats when compared to intercropping. |
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Plants to Avoid |
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Pole Beans, Thyme, Squash, Potatoes, Dill, Mint |
Cabbages, Tomatoes, Eggplant, Fennel |
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Beets, Cabbage, Carrots, Cauliflower, Celery, Corn, Cucumbers, eggplants, Peas, Radishes, Rosemary, and Sunflowers |
Basil, Members of the Onion Family, and Kohlrabi |
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Peas, corn, beans, lentils, legumes, radishes, beets, carrots, and onions. |
Potatoes, Sage, Melons |
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Sacramento Area Planting and Harvest Guide |
Also see the UC Sacramento Vegetable Planting Schedule
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This group is about sharing bountiful vegetable gardens with others. |
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Contact Will Cannady for more information. |
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In 2019, Martha Hogan started a local @cityofwestsac Facebook group called #WestsacCropSwap. They share and swap fruits and veggies home grown LOCALLY that would otherwise go to waste. If you know of families that may be in need of healthy fruits or veggies please have them reach out. |
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Sacramento |
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Folsom |
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Citrus Heights |
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Rancho Cordova |
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Super Trees! |
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Consider planting any of these Super Trees! They’re water-wise for the Sacramento area—all but the loquat tree are on the City of Sacramento’s River Friendly Landscape Plant List, they have edible fruit (pomegranate or strawberry) or flavorful leaves (sweet bay), they attract beneficial wildlife, provide cooling shade in the summer, most let warming light through in the winter, and all but the olive have fruit and are free to SMUD customers (subject to availability). Check out SMUD’s Free Shade Tree Program and Free Tree List. |
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Free Wood Chips |
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Adding wood chips to your yard each year will lead to healthier plant growth by reducing weeds, cooling the soil in the summer, conserving water, and slowly adding organic matter as it breaks down. You can get free wood chips by signing up for ChipDrop or you can search for tree trimmers in your area, then call or complete their website form to request free wood chips the next time they cut down and shred a tree in your neighborhood. SMUD customers can also pick up wood chips. ChipDrop may give you up to 20 cubic yards, which could cover 9 inches of a standard ranch-style home/property; more than the recommended 4 to 6 inches. To prevent nitrogen depletion or spreading diseases, only apply as ground cover in shrub beds, natural areas, and around trees while keeping the mulch away from the tree trunks and vegetables or annual flower beds. |
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Debbie Arrington is a master rosarian. Kathy Morrison Hellesen is a UCCE master gardener. Together they have more than 60 years of gardening experience in California, most of that in Sacramento's grower-friendly climate. They believe all gardening is local. They both love to cook what they grow. They also are longtime journalists (at the Sacramento Bee and elsewhere) who believe Sacramento deserves local gardening coverage. |
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Take a Plant, Leaf a Plant *Free* Sacramento (Map) |
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Consider donating or volunteering for Harvest Sacramento |
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Resoil Sacramento |
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ReSoil Sacramento advocates for three things that we can do to address our changing climate: 1) compost, 2) grow our own food, and 3) build regenerative, climate-resilient landscapes. Check out the latest and get involved. |
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Consider Donating Extra Produce at any area food pantry |
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Join the Climate Victory Garden movement |
Join the Million Gardens Movement |
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Consider forwarding this email to invite a friend or colleague to:
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Note: |
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1) Every pound of homegrown vegetables you grow can cut 2 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions when compared to the store-bought counterpart, although what you eat matters more (e.g., fruits, nuts, and vegetables) than how it’s transported. 2) A single home compost bin diverts approximately 646 pounds of waste from landfill each year. |
