March Gardening Tips

Spring Gardening Tasks

Here are our March Gardening Tips to get your garden ready for spring! 

In March the temperatures climb slowly and the soil is usually still too cold to sow right outside. We start off a lot of seeds either indoors or in our tunnels. We use reusable cell trays for this purpose and transplant later on into the final position.

Here are some tips on how to start seeds indoors.

If you have to sow outside you can garden fleece or black fabric to warm up the soil. Hoop tunnels are also easy to put up for little cost. A cold frame is also great to get seeds started in the spring.

What To Sow In March?

If you haven't started tomatoes yet you can still do this! You can also start cucumbers, courgettes, peppers, and aubergines.

These tender and heat-loving crops need a warm place indoors or in a heated glasshouse to start them off successfully. 

If you have trouble getting your seeds to germinate you can use an electric propagator. It will provide even heat to get your seeds started off quickly.

Start cold-tolerant crops like carrots, broad beans, beetroot, and turnips can be sown outside under fleece once the soil has warmed up sufficiently. Otherwise sow them in an unheated glasshouse, tunnel or cold frame.

We also start onion, leeks, scallions, beetroot, chard, spinach, lettuce and early peas in the unheated greenhouses now. They can tolerate the cool night temperatures we get at this time of the year.

You can also start flower seeds indoors now. Try Alyssum, Viola, Pansies, Nasturtiums, Sweet Peas, and Lobelias. They are all easy to grow and add lots of color to beds and containers.

Put a heat mat under the seed trays to speed up gemination!

Watch this short video for tips and tricks around seedling care!

What Else Is There To Do In The Garden In March?

• Chit seed potatoes and plant a few either in containers or in a greenhouse for some nice early potatoes.
• Do you grow asparagus? This is one of my favorite vegetables and once they are established they will produce for many years. You can order asparagus crowns now and get a bed ready for planting. Look here for asparagus growing tips.
  
• Seedling Care: If you started seeds in January or February you probably have a window sill full of seedlings. Here are some tips for seedling care and maintenance.
• You can still prune your roses 
• Divide perennials and replant them
• Spring flowers like primroses or pansies can be planted into flower beds or containers. Combine them with forced bulbs like daffodils, hyacinths, grape hyacinths or tulips for a nice display.
• bare rooted trees, roses and shrubs can be planted until the end of the month
• plant fruit trees and bushes like apple, pear, plum, cherry, red and black currants, raspberries and gooseberries
• you can still transplant trees and shrubs if they haven't started budding yet

March Gardening Tips For Container Gardens

Check your overwintered container plants. Some might not have made it through the winter. Lift them carefully out of the pot and check the root system. A healthy plant will have a firm root ball. Check for vine weevil grubs. These can do a lot of damage to container plants during the winter by eating the roots. Badly infested plants can get killed by them. 

How To Deal With A Vine Weevil Infestation

Badly infested plants seem loose and are rocking in the soil when you move them. Most of them can be saved though!

Shake out the roots...or what's left of them. Make sure that you don't miss any of the grubs and replant with new potting soil. Make sure to kill all the grubs! Our chickens love them....

If you have many pots and you suspect vine weevils you can use nematodes that will kill the grubs. A lot of plants can get infested with them but there are some that seem to be at the top of their favorite food list. This includes primroses, primulas, strawberries, saxifragas, sedums and other succulents. Check these plants carefully for the grubs. 

The nematodes have to be ordered online. Because these little creatures are alive they have to be stored in the fridge and used within a certain time. Follow the instructions on the packaging. This organic method deals with this problem very efficiently.

Image by nick goodrum

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