Gardening month by month: March

March in the Garden

The hares will soon be out in the fields going mad, and the gardeners and allotment holders will be madly peeking out from their sheds looking for fine days to start getting things in the ground. This month sees the rate of planting and sowing start to ramp up and the new season will really feel like it's getting under way.

 Sowing

One major job that will take place on plots up and down the country is that of getting potatoes in the ground. The seed potatoes may have been sitting in cool windowsills for the last month or so chitting (growing green sprouts) and the ground preparation is fairly easy. First dig out any perennial weeds in the plot and turn over any early germinating annual weeds. Then dig trenches just under a spit (spade blade length) deep and place a layer of well-rotted muck or garden compost five or six inches deep in the bottom. Place the seed potatoes on top of the manure with the green shoots uppermost and cover them with some of the excavated soil. Leave a little mound of excavated soil between the trenches - this will be used later in the season to help ‘mound up' the potatoes. The distance between seed potato tubers in the trenches and the trenches themselves will vary a bit from variety to variety but a good rule of thumb is 12-14" between tubers and 16-20" between rows. This may seem rather ‘spaced out' to first-time growers but the potato tops will soon spread out and it also gives room for the new potatoes to develop well underground whilst allowing good air movement around the plants above ground.

If the sun decides to make a showing for a few days, a bit of plastic sheet can be held down with stones or boards over a finely raked bed to get the soil warmed up. This will allow a first outdoor sowing of carrots - folk with cold frames can also get some more in there if they didn't get a chance last month. Warming up the soil with plastic sheeting is a trick that can be used with lots of other crops later in the year - if you can get transparent sheeting it can even be put back over the soil once the seeds are sown to act as a mini-cloche. My Dad once had our peas up about three weeks before any of his neighbours by using this trick!

Indoors and under glass the sowing is also in full swing now. Brussels sprout seeds can be sown in pots or modules now to get them started on their long growing season. Similarly leeks, onions, lettuce, radishes, summer spinach, marigolds, nasturtiums and tomatoes can be sown in containers - window sills and warm greenhouse staging will be full of trays, themselves full of pots. Last-minute sowings of aubergines, sweet peppers and chillies can also be made this month. Covering many of these seeds with either the commercially available clear plastic lids or clear plastic bags held on with rubber bands will often help with germination as they allow a warm ‘micro climate' to develop. As soon as seedlings appear these should be removed (or the ventilators opened on the lids) so that the air does not become too moist as this can lead to ‘damping off disease' - a fungal condition that causes the base of the young plant to rot and then collapse.

Planting Out

Back outside, the herb beds have a few tasks that might need attending to. Established chive plants can have their clumps separated to supply new plants (pop them round the carrots - the smell of the chives can confuse the carrot root fly later in the season). Similarly clumps of bergamot and sorrel can also be split up. If you have marjoram, select a few long shoots and ‘layer' them. This simply means bending them down to the ground and then securing with sharp forked twigs or wire staples so that they stay in contact with the soil. If you don't have any marjoram then you can also sow it this month. Some people sow it indoors and transplant but the seedlings can be quite delicate so others prefer to sow in the final location and thin later in the year. Like many herbs marjoram does not need well-fertilised soil but does need good drainage - if you've got a heavy soil remember to dig in some sand or grit.

Other Jobs

March can also be the month when the slugs and snails start to make their presence felt, especially if you've got some tender juicy seedlings popping up under cloches outside. Get a bit of a head start on them by putting some beer traps in the beds and also laying some wooden boards or large flat stones around the plot. Empty the beer traps regularly and take a peek under the boards or stones in the morning to capture the sheltering molluscs. Don't just throw them over the fence in to the neighbours' plots - slugs and snails will soon travel back to your tasty greens. You have to..er...'dispose' of them in a way that they really won't make a comeback. Scissors or garden shears can help with that...

Jim'll

photos (c) Jilly Graham 2009