Vegetable & fruit growing in March, The growing season has started
Tomato sowing , sow into individual pots as the seed is expensive sow one seed per pot (not as always mentioned in magazines three per pot then choose the healthier to grow on). Sow a few different types, beef steak, salad, plum, cherry, and currant. Sow into 7cm pots with a basic potting compost.
Recent ideas in training cordon tomatoes allow to grow to three levels of leaves in height, pinch out the top above one set of leaves above first flower truss so it grows on the side shoot, next flower truss repeat so the main stem is made up with side shoots this closes up the height and flower trusses are closer together giving more fruit per plant. Instead of three layers of leaves between fruit trusses you only have two.
Prepare a bean trench where you wish to grow fill trench with newspaper and garden compost or other compostable material, old potting compost is also ideal as beans are a hungry crop and require lots of moisture and fertile soil
Sow carrots, parsnips, summer lettuce and leaves, broad beans, leaf beets, brussel sprouts , green broccoli, cauliflower, leeks, peas, radish, spring onions and turnips,
Sow under cover celeriac, celery, tomatoes
Plant out shallots and onion bulbs, early potatoes in the ground or container
Start an asparagus bed if you have room these will give you an early vegetable when not much else is around; choose a sunny and well drained fertile soil.
Sowing carrots put onion bulbs next to them to mask the smell of carrots from carrot fly and surround your rows with fine mesh about 1metre high or cover totally with gardeners fleece to stop carrot fly and don’t follow ground that previously grown carrots the year before.
If you have had trouble with Onion Fly plant mint in pots down the row but don’t put mint in the ground as it’s hard to eradicate if it establishes in your plot.
Harvest Rhubarb help them along with a good mulch of garden compost or manure if flower stems form, quickly cut these out.
Last chance to plant bare rooted fruit trees
Plant strawberry runners into pots or ground make sure the soil has been feed with compost or well-rotted manure, as strawberries are hungry and require lots of feeding to return a good crop.
March, Sat 1st
Willow Basketry for Beginners at Ryton gardens
This course has been designed to guide total beginners, step by step through each stage of the basket-making process.Click here for more information
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