March In The Garden
March 05 2008
MARCH
True to the old folklore March came in like a lion in the form of a raging gale and wrecked my greenhouse. Hopefully it will now carry on like a lamb and let me pick up the pieces.
March is the month of the Spring Equinox, around the 20th. The Equinoxes mark the point when day and night are of equal length. After the 20th March the days will be longer than the nights for the 6 months up to the Autumn Equinox, on September 22nd, after which the nights become longer than the days again.
This month you could be eating fresh …
Parsnips, leeks, winter salads, spring cabbage and cauliflower, Brussels, kale, rhubarb and sprouting broccoli.
The increasing day length means longer hours of stronger sunshine and rising temperatures, warming the soil and making some seed sowing possible.
Sow outdoors…
Broad beans, lettuce, onions, radish and early carrots and peas.
Near the end of the month sow kale, kohl rabi, turnips, cabbage, cauliflower and beetroot.
If you have an unheated greenhouse or cold frame…
Sow hardy crops to give them a head start over outdoor sowings: beetroot, calabrese, cabbage. cauliflower, leeks and onions, radish, spinach, early carrots and peas, broad beans.
If you have a frost-free greenhouse…
Sow tender crops now for early summer harvests: tomatoes, sweet peppers, aubergines, cucumbers and globe artichokes, as well as the cold greenhouse crops.
Fruit in the greenhouse
Continue pollinating flowering fruits like peaches, nectarines, apricots and indoor strawberries. Tickle the flowers with a soft brush whenever you have time, ideally once a day.
And outdoors…
Complete the planting of new trees and bushes this month.
Mulch established plants that are cropping well.
Rhubarb – if you have been forcing rhubarb this winter take the covers off this month.
Apply potash, or wood ashes, to any fruits, but if your haven’t enough for all give it to the Gooseberries, and other bush and cane fruit.
Wood Ash is not only high in Potassium, but also Calcium, so can also be of great use on the compost heap in small doses. But if you have a poultry house wood ash comes into its own as in a litter for the birds. The combination of the ash and the fresh bird manure gives a longer lasting and storable dry product, with about 1% Nitrogen, 1.5% Phosphorus, and 2% Potassium. Hens don’t just give eggs!
Blueberry pruning
This month is the time to prune established blueberries. This is quite a simple procedure. The best fruit comes from 2 and 3 year old wood. Remove the oldest shoots at ground level, up to about a quarter of the total shoots. Or you can cut them above a strong bud. Also take out any thin, weak and damaged shoots, and shoots that are too low. The variety Berkeley is the exception in that it is reluctant to make new wood and should just have the weak shoots removed. If you take out a lot of wood from blueberries give the bush a good feed and mulch with shredded Leylandii, or any other conifers that need a prune.
Phil Corbett
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