Sowing and planting your favourite vegetables in March can begin in earnest now. Although you may have already planted seeds in February, many can now be resown for a successional planting as well as starting new seeds that were better sown from March onwards.
I read a really great quote from the latest edition of Grow your own magazine where someone stated “let the date indicate when to perform a task but the weather conditions determine if you should go ahead”. His words ring so true.
There are many seeds and plants that can be sown this month but the weather is still too cold and wet for many to germinate. Warming the soil with fleece or black plastic beforehand generally helps to improve growing conditions, as does covering the crop with some sort of cloche or fleece. Sometimes crops sown later in the month generally produce healthier plants than those sown early that have had to deal with the testing growing conditions.
I will outline all of the seeds that can be sown now but I will leave the decision of whether or not you defer the planting time until later in the month due to the weather conditions in your area.
Jobs to do………in March
- Continue to plan what you intend to grow this year and order seeds before your favourites become unavailable
- Harden off and transplant autumn sown cauliflowers and cabbages
- Finish digging all of the vegetable beds, cultivating the soil weekly to produce a fine tilth in the soil
- Finish any construction work that you may have left to do as your time will be needed more for the plants in the coming months
- Lift the remaining leeks and parsnips that have been left in the ground
- Continue to chit your potatoes in a frost free place to encourage strong shoots
- Warm areas of your soil with clear polythene, carpet, cardboard or black plastic
- Check that shallots in the ground are still firmly in place and not been pulled up by the birds.
- Continue to save the cardboard tubes from toilet and kitchen rolls and newspapers to make your own biodegradable pots for seed sowing next month
- Harden off vegetables that were sown in January or February in the cold frame
- Make sure pots and seed trays are cleaned ready for sowing
- Prune fruit trees while still dormant such as apple, pear, currant and gooseberry
What to sow………Indoors (Heated or Unheated)
- Aubergines
- Broad Beans
- Lettuce
- Peas
- Chillies
- Parsley
- Melons
- Celery
- Onions and shallot seeds
- Kohl Rabi
- Kale
- Tomatoes
- Cucumbers
- Brussels Sprouts
- Winter salads
- Summer Cabbages
- Summer Cauliflowers
- Calabrese
- Early variety peas
- Parsley (curly leafed)
- French beans
- Leeks
- Spinach
- Radish
What to sow………Outdoors (Under Protection)
- Spinach
- Salad Leaves
- Lettuce
- Rocket
- Brussels Sprouts
- Sprouting Broccoli
- Red Cabbage
- Summer Cabbage
- Autumn Cabbage
- Tomatoes
- Early Cauliflower
- Leeks
- Calabrese
- Spring Onions
- Herbs
- Radish
- Mangetout
- Calabrese
- Early Peas
- Early Carrots
- Early Beetroot
- Broccoli (Summer variety)
- Broad beans
- Onions
- Parsnips
What to plant………in March
- Plant rhubarb sets
- Fruit bushes
- Jerusalem artichokes
- Asparagus crowns
- Bare root container-grown trees
- Horseradish
- Strawberries
- Early potatoes
- Garlic
- Onion sets
- Shallots
Crops in season now
- Broccoli (Sprouting)
- Spring onions
- Spring Cabbage
- Spring Cauliflower
- Chicory
- Endive
- Jerusalem Artichokes
- Kale
- Lettuce
- Parsnips
- Spinach
Happy sowin’
Debb
This is a terrific list. Thankyou for pulling it together! I shall file it away for later, as Autumn is definitley getting its toes in now
Thank you for this great post. I have been looking for a good list to follow as I’m new to veggie gardening:)
Thanks for your comments Tanya. I tried to do one of these lists each month to keep us veg growers organised.
sounds good, ill be back for more:)
Oh my life!!
I have just read your post.. my veg plot is barren, there are just some strawberry plants alive.
Time to shape up then!! Let me shame you into getting planting! Lol
I have man flu at the moment, that is my excuse.
Ha ha! Medication for flu these days have come on in leaps and bounds. Get dosed up and get diggin!
atishoo
Bless you and your crops!!
Luigina, the old lady next door was explaining that Monday was a new moon .. or it might have been an old moon, she swaps from Italian to dialect and loses me. But the up shot was I should be out in the garden digging holes.
She sounds like my kind of lady! Listen to your Elders. They always have words if wisdom!
Hi Deb, I want to grow carrots, parsnips, beetroot etc but we get a lot of slugs in our garden, it puts me off, any ideas?
Hi Nilam. Many plants can be grown in containers. Carrots do really well in pots as long as they are quite deep although there are shorter varieties available. Slugs are a problem for all veg growers. Crushed egg shell, sharp grit or as a last resort slug pellets can help to deter them. Don’t let slugs put you off. Give veg a go. You will get so much joy from growing them. Let me know how you get on. Debb.
I have already been growing tomatoes, aubergines, spinach, peas, spring onions, courgettes, runner beans, peppers, herbs and variety of flowering plants over the past few years but always held back on growing root vegetables because of slugs.. when it comes to growing carrots I would also have to worry about green flies but I have read somewhere that growing onions close to carrots should deter them?
Slugs only normally bother with the foliage on root vegetables like carrots, parsnips and beetroots when the leaves are small. So as long as you protect the smaller leaves with some sort of protection when they are small, you should be okay. These type of vegetables also grow really well in containers and that generally helps with problems from slugs.
Growing onions alongside carrots helps to deter both the onion fly and the carrot fly. You can also grow these very successfully in the ground as long as you cover them with some fine mesh.
Take a look at my two posts that I have written called spotlight on onions and spotlight on carrots. This should give you a little bit of more information.
Debb
I love spring onions so looks like I will be growing a few containers of carrots alongside with them this year.. I’ve got a few large containers so will try growing salad potatoes too! Thanks for your help Deb x
That’s great. You need to start chitting your seed potatoes now ready to plant out at the end of this month.
I am going to reblog this…if you are ok. Very helpful. Will do tomorrow. I just planted my herbs and a few veggies. But this will help me better. A post that I have drafted and just need to publish is about raised gardens.
Thanks for stopping by. I’m glad you found my post useful. Debb