Gardening jobs for March
Spring is here, the days are beginning to lengthen and become warmer and us gardeners have a busy month ahead! Here are some jobs for March:
Weeding and learning about your weeds
As the weather warms up, it’s time to tidy up borders and start weeding - some plants like horsetail and bindweed can be very invasive and will quickly take over the garden, so it’s easier to control them if you remove the young plants as they start to appear. However, as a weed is simply any wild plant growing in the wrong place, why not consider the benefits of leaving some to grow? Plants such as dandelions provide food for pollinators, beautiful yellow flowers for you to enjoy, and their young leaves are edible and delicious when tossed into salads! Similarly, nettles support over 40 insect species in the UK, including providing food for the caterpillars of many of our native butterflies. Nettles are also a delicious seasonal treat for us too! Why not try out our recipe for Foraged Nettle Spanakopita?
Planting flower seeds
Many seeds can be started off now for flowers, herbs, fruits and vegetables. Wildflower and hardy annual flower seeds can be sown outside now, with plants such as calendula, love-in-a-mist, Californian poppies and poached egg flower all being fantastic choices for ease of growing and their tendency to self-seed around the garden, meaning more flowers and less work next year!
Sowing fruit and vegetable seeds
Growing fruit and vegetables from seed is such a valuable activity to do with children, as they get to see the full cycle of a crop plant from germination through to harvest. Whether you have a large outside space or a container garden, you can sow beetroot, spring onions, spinach, Swiss chard, peas (for shoots if planting into a container) lettuce and carrots outside now.
Growing tomatoes
March is the best time to start tomatoes off too. There are loads of varieties to choose from, with plants of various sizes offering fruits that vary in size, shape, colour and flavour! The best types for growing with children are small-fruited varieties, as they are the easiest to grow, fastest to fruit and can provide you with lots of tasty tomatoes all summer long. ‘Tumbling Tom’ and ‘Maskotka’ are both low-maintenance, compact plants that have a naturally trailing habit, so are a brilliant choice for hanging baskets and other containers.
If you are planning some new additions to your garden, spring is the perfect time to plant new shrubs and perennial plants, as the warmer weather and rainy days will get your plants off to a great start. You can also start to plant summer-flowering bulbs, such as dahlias, crocosmia and ranunculus towards the end of the month.
Author: Alison Kenehan, RHS-qualified gardener and mother
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