March Gardening Calendar
at Garden-Helper.com
March finally brings the garden to life for many in warmer climates while for those of us in colder areas it yields at the least some hope. March is one of the busiest months for gardeners as this gardening chores list for the month indicates.
This calendar is available as a Gardening Podcast to take with you on your iPod or other mp3 player while you are out in the garden. Finally after a long cold winter you can spend much of this month either in the garden, greenhouse, coldframe or at the very least starting seeds indoors. All Garden-Helper podcasts are available both through the iTunes music store and at Yahoo! podcasts.
Other Calendar Months Coming Soon
January
February
March
April
May
June
October
November
December
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March Gardening Chores
Check here for a complete list of what to plant in March.
House Plants
You've spent the last several months dealing primarily with house plants and seeing them through the winter months. Now comes March and your potted wonders will begin to react to longer days and additional sunlight by starting new growth. At the end of March pinch back your plants to encourage this new growth and to keep them growing bushy. Once you have pinched them back give them a feeding with diluted soluble plant food intended for house plants.
To encourage even growth give your plants a quarter turn every week or so in order to assure that all side of the plant receive relatively equal exposure to the sunlight.
Lawn Care in March
In preparation for the upcoming season it is important to get a sense of the health of your lawn. One method for doing this is to gig a four inch square plug from the lawn several inches deep and examine it. If understanding lawn problems by examining the plug is unfamiliar to you most garden centers can assist in diagnosing the plug for you. When you have finished examing the plug simply replace it in the lawn. Most lawns will need a spring feeding. We recommend an organic fertilizer. If thatching or liming needs to be done, do those jobs first. Reseeding your lawn can be done as the last step, after the lawn has been fertilized.
Dandelions will begin to make themselves known in your lawn this month so get them now while it's early. One really clever way of doing this is to use a drill with a homemade bit as long as your leg. You can buy metal tubing at the hardware store that will work just perfectly for this and then place a regular drill bit at the end. Now all you need to do is walk your lawn and where you spot a dandelion poke the bit into the center of the plant and start the drill. The twisting of the bit will remove the plant entirely. This method also means you will not be kneeling and bending to remove dandelions!
Soil pH
Test your soil pH level to determine if you need to add ammendments.
Click here to purchase a Soil pH Meter
Vegetables And Fruits
Start with the soil. Prepare your vegetable garden soil for planting with the addition of organic material in the soil. Perennial vegetables like Asparagus, Rhubarb and artichokes can be planted right now. Sweet peas, potatoes, onions and some salad crops can also be planted in March. Spinach, Broccoli, Celery, Radish seeds, Leeks, Cauliflower, Swiss Chard and other hardy vegetables can be seeded or set-out in the later part of this month.
March is a good time to plant fruit trees and berries too. If you had strawberries and mulched them this past fall be sure to remove the mulch when growth begins. If you don't have established strawberries this is the month to start a new bed of strawberries. Blueberries, Boysenberries and Currants may also be started this month.
Tomatoes and lettuce and other salad greens can be started from seed this month. Depending on your climate you may want to do this in a coldframe or indoors.
Flowers
Remove the winter mulch from existing roses and prune as needed.
Annuals that enjoy the cooler weather March offers may be planted. These include pansies, snapdragons and calendulas.
Tulip and daffodil bulbs which are getting ready to please you later this month may require a light application of fertilizer. If your soil is rich you can likely skip this.
Planting and Transplanting
Check here for a complete list of what to plant in March.
Bulbs We recommend the use of Bulb-Tone Bulb Fertilizer to get your bulbs off to the right start.
March is a great month for planting new fruit trees, rose bushes, berries, and other deciduous plants. Nurseries typically have a complete selection of new plants this month, so you can get to choose from the best selections. As for transplanting, it should have been done during the dormant cycle but if not you can still transplant although it may be harder on your plants. Many plants will have started their spring growth making transplating more difficult on them.
As a general rule for March or April transplanting get it done before buds have swelled or broken open and they should fare well.
Trees and Shrubs
Aside from walnut, maple and birch trees which are best pruned after leafing, March is a good month to prune your trees. Avoid pruning flowering shrubs, though, until after they have bloomed.
If you choose to mulch trees and shrubs do so at a depth of between two to four inches, but keep the mulch away from the trunks. If you have younger trees that were wrapped for the winter remove the wraps for summer growing.
Odd and Ends
Broken or weak arbors, fences and trellis should be repaired this month as you will only be getting busier in the coming months. These items can be damaged by winter weather conditions so be sure to take a walk around your property and check the integrity of these. If you have fencing up for protective purposes from rodents and animals take care to examine your fencing for entryways made of the winter.
Clean out your birdhouses now, so they will be ready when birds return from their migrations.
Weed. Do it now so you aren't fighting the grandchildren of weeds for the next decade. Sounds ridiculous, but it's very true. Weeding in the early spring can save you hours of a back breaking war later.