Spring has finally sprung

Spring has finally sprung here in the U.K and though it’s not official for a few more days, we’ve found that our garden’s are not a’waitin’ for the official word on things.

Things to do in the March garden

Inside:

If you haven’t already started your tomatoes, aubergines and peppers, now’s the time to do so. Although they germinate best with a bit of heat, you can simply put them on a sunny windowsill.

If you have a greenhouse, cloche or cold frame, now’s a good time to start your first sowings of carrots, radishes, and lettuce. If you don’t have any of these season extenders it’s perfectly fine to start the radishes and carrots in larger planters and put the lettuce starts on a sunny windowsill alongside the tomatoes. In milder parts of the U.K. you might be able to get away with planting these outside. Just be careful to protect them from any sudden cold spells.

In the Greenhouse

As mentioned above, sow carrots, radishes and lettuce. You can also get away with starting some of your brassicas and spinach, spinach, spinach!  (Spinach loves these colder temperatures!)

Another thing that’s important is to cleaning off your greenhouse glass and/or plastic to make sure that your plants are getting as much sun as possible.

Outside:

As long as your soil isn’t frozen or waterlogged, now’s the time to plant shallots, onion sets and early potatoes outdoors. You can also pot up sets into individual pots and transplanting outdoors later in the season.

The soil is still pretty cold and wet throughout much of Britain right now, and if this is true for you, you might want to warm it up by placing cloches over your beds. If your soil’s workable, now’s an excellent time to turn in any green manure/cover crops you had planted and/or add in a layer of compost to your beds.

If you have shrubby perennials, now’s the time to cut back the old, woody stems and make way for the new spring growth.

March is also the time that weeds start making their way back into your garden. Getting an early start on them now will help you stay on top of things later. Pulling them is great, but even better is mulching! Mulch all of your paths and borders to prevent grass and other persistent encroachers from getting into your beds.

Overall, take advantage of any and all dry days. Make sure anything left from the past season is tidied up or removed and get ready—the growing season is almost fully upon us!