MARCH UK
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- Sow tender bedding plants and vegetables (see below) in a heated propagator or in trays on a warm windowsill or greenhouse .
- Select seeds and buy from Dobies
Suttons
Keen Gardener
- Reserve your choice of grafted tomato and pepper plants to plant out later in the year click here.
- Order and prepare raised beds for growing vegetables and flowers.
- Plant Potatoes.
- Plant perennial herbs such as marjoram, mint, rosemary and sage.
- Lift and divide congested clumps of perennials.
- Plant out bulbs grown for indoor use which have finished flowering.
- Prune tender climbers and wall shrubs if they show strong growth.
- Remove winter protection from containers later in the month when the risk of hard frost has gone, and top-dress or replant overgrown or pot-bound plants adding a slow-release fertiliser.
- Cut off dead flower spikes from summer-flowering heathers and prune young tree heathers.
- Apply a spring fertiliser to established lawns once they are actively growing and cut grass when it is about 8 cm (3 in) high.
- Prune spring-flowering shrubs over three years old as they finish flowering.
Sow and plant out vegetables including beetroot,broad beans, carrots, celeriac, kohlrabi, onions, peas, spinach, swedes and turnips.
- Sow seeds of tomatoes in a heated propagator or on a warm windowsill to grow on outdoors when all danger of frost is over.
- Mulch beds and borders while the soil is moist to reduce the need for watering and to keep down weeds.
- Sow green manures - phacelia, buckwheat, red clover, lupins, mustard, winter tares and trefoil.
- Now is a good to select a Greenhouse to make full use of it over the coming year to grow and harvest fruit and vegetables.
- Sow seeds:-
- tomatoes
- Bedding plants such as African marigolds, petunias, lobelia and antirrhinums.
- Begonias and Pelargoniums.
- Quick-growing perennials.
Sow hardy annuals in a cold frame or unheated greenhouse.
Make sure pots and seed trays with plants and seedlings in the greenhouse do not dry out.
- Sow broad beans, onions, peas, lettuce, cabbage, spinach, parsley, carrots, parsnips, radishes and spring onions.
- Sprout maincrop potatoes and plant sprouted tubers of early varieties.
- Plant asparagus, Jerusalem artichokes, onion sets and garlic.
- Make the first outdoor sowings of culinary and salad herbs.
- Finish pruning and planting fruit bushes such as autumn-fruiting raspberries.
- Graft apples and pears.
- Continue greasebands until end of the month.
- Cover ground under pear trees with carpet mulch to prevent pear midges.
- If frosty, protect blossom with sacks or fleece.
- Inspect raspberry canes for signs of raspberry moth and other pests and diseases.
- Prune plum trees once they have started growing.
- If barley straw bales or pads were used to reduce algae during the summer months, these can now be removed and added to the compost heap. Let them sit by the edge of the pond for 24 hours before composting, so that pond insects can find their way back into the water.
- Rake out fallen leaves or shake off those that have gathered on protective netting.
- Use Pond Nets to prevent hungry herons depleting your fish stocks.
- If the pond becomes frozen do not be tempted to smash the ice on the pond with a spade or hammer as the shock waves could kill fish and other wildlife. Put some boiling water in a pot and hold it over the pond to melt away a hole.
- Before the pond is likely to freeze float a tenis ball in the water before it freezes. Once the ice has formed, remove the ball to create a breathing hole.
- Prevent the pond freezing invest in an Air Pumps or Pond Heaters or Air Stones. These kits will keep the water aerated and moving.
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Spring
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(c) Compiled by B V & T M Wood.
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