Green shoots at Phoenix

When the wicked weeds start sprouting you know it’s time to get moving. There’s a couple of months starting when spring begins to really happen that will determine the success of your season, if you fall behind then it’s so hard to catch up later. In UK that time generally starts sometime in March, it has started already in southern England but probably not till late March in northern Scotland.

It’s easy to spot – just take a look at patches of clear ground you’ve previously cultivated, the newly germinated annual weeds will be forming a carpet of seedlings. And if they think it’s time to burst into life so can your sowings. As always be guided by your local climate, season, weather and soil conditions; avoid working, walking on and sowing in cold, wet soil.

The pic is a patch of garlic, broad beans and early peas (under fleece) in late February. Not a lot to see yet, I’ll show you the same view in a month or so’s time. Crops for eating are same as for February but the Tuscan kale is bolting early – that’s fine for now ‘cos the immature flower heads are delicious steamed but I would have liked it to wait a month or two more.

One of my first tasks in March, perhaps strangely, is preparing a seed bed – dig, level and rake to a fine tilth – for sowing my summer and winter brassicas and leeks. By doing this two or three weeks before sowing it I can kill the first flush of annual weeds by hoeing a couple of days before I sow late in March or early April. This is called a ‘stale seed bed’, it saves effort later and gives your seeds an advantage over the weeds (well, less disadvantage, anyhow). The stale bed technique is good for all sowings and plantings but rarely are we 2+ weeks ahead in soil preparation in the whole garden.

I find a seed bed about 3′ (0.9m) wide about right for producing around 20 plants per row of brassicas, 30 plants of leeks, and sow about twice the number of seeds as I expect to produce plants. If you have a problem with pests like cabbage root fly, and you might if oilseed rape is grown nearby, I’d plan to cover the seedbed with fleece or PVC cloches. If you hand weed the rows need be only 6″ (15cm) apart, if you want to hoe you need at least 8″ (20cm) between rows.

Outdoors throughout March I’d sow broad beans (Aquadulce types in first half, others later – I like Witkiem Manita for heavy crops, Optica for small, sweet beans), plant jerusalem artichokes, and hurry to get garlic planted if not done already. See February for info on all these.

Radish, turnip, early carrots, rocket, kohl rabi can be probably sown direct outdoors, they would like cloche protection but should do OK later in March without if the soil is warm enough. If you can provide cloche or fleece protection you can sow salad onions, onions, cold hardy lettuce, spinach, bolt resistant beetroot, plant earliest potatoes (mid month or later).

From mid March you can plant shallots and onions. Check the details for the varieties you are using, some are fine planted in March, some can be inclined to bolt unless you wait till early April.

Peas can be sown now, early varieties throughout March, maincrop varieties beginning late March. I like to do a row of earlies under fleece, sowing a band about 18″ (0.5m) wide spacing seed about 5″ (12cm) apart across the whole band. Most very early varieties only grow 18″-24″ (0.5m) high so don’t need support. I prefer tall peas (5 to 6′, 0.8 to 1m) for maincrops – they crop longer and are more productive – so these need staking. I sow a pair of bands each about 6″ (15cm) wide, 2′ 6″ (75cm) apart and space seed about 2″ (5cm) apart in the bands.

Did you spot something odd above? I space my cloched early peas twice as far apart. Mice and some birds like pigeons seem to have pea-seeking sensors, this is a hungry time of year for them and peas make a very nice snack, thank you! If your peas aren’t eaten before they germinate and emerge then slugs love those tender young shoots. If 50% of your unprotected peas make it to 6″ high – by which time they are fairly safe – then you have been lucky, perhaps you want to protect them?

Parsnips need a long growing season but are slow and poor germinators, I have a trick for you, pre-germinate the seed indoors where it’s warm. I first did this using ‘fluid sowing’ – germinate the seed, mix up wallpaper paste (without fungicide or chemicals in it), stir the germinated seed into the paste, put in a plastic bag, cut off a corner, and use it like a cake icing bag to pipe the seed into a drill. Important to water the drill every couple of days thereafter for a week or so if it doesn’t rain so the paste is washed out and doesn’t dry and kill the emerging seedlings. It worked but whew! what a palaver.

Nowadays I use a slimmed down version. Pre-germinate the seed on moist cloth or kitchen paper in a covered plastic container somewhere about 70 F (20 C), the cloth / paper must be saturated but no surplus free water. Check daily to see if germinating and ensure moist. In 5 to 8 days you should start seeing the first white shoots appear, once about 20% have – or at most two days after their first appearance – I plan to sow the next day and take the lid off the container about 6 to 12 hours before sowing to let the cloth / paper just dry out so the seeds are easier to shake off. If the shoots are more than 0.2″ (5mm) long they’re harder to handle and easier to break. I shake / brush the sprouting seeds off the paper / cloth and sow about 1″ (2cm) apart in rows 10″ (25cm) apart. I reckon this doubles my parsnip germination rate and gains at least 3 weeks compared with normally direct sown at the end of March.

Back to the seed bed. It’s now late March, get your earliest varieties sown first: summer cabbages, cauliflowers, calabrese, purple sprouting broccoli – yes, there are summer varieties now, brussels sprouts, early leeks. Once those are done continue with the rest of your brussels sprouts and leeks. Do keep good notes on what you’ve sown where. Did you make your seed bed big enough? Work out how many plants of what you want to grow, use my guidelines above for plants per row, you should have done this before creating your seed bed ;) While you’re at it: where are you going to put all these plants when you transplant them? Nice to have some spares for friends and neighbours, though.

It’s a good time to divide clumps of herbs like chives, mint, oregano, thyme, lemon balm. You can start rooting semi-hardwood cuttings of herbs like rosemary, sage, lavender, too. I use cuttings about 3″ (8cm) long with some woody stem at bottom, remove all but the top 2 or 3 sets of leaves; mix soil, peat based compost (previously used is fine) and sand so it drains well, fill pots and stick the cuttings in so about 50% is in soil and about 1″ (2.5cm) apart, and leave them outside. Within a couple of months most will have rooted and you can pot up to give away or grow yourself.

Bare rooted trees and fruits like raspberries need to be planted now. Strawberry plants and runners if you want a crop from them this year, too. If you want an early strawberry crop now is the time to cover with fleece.

While outdoors begin your summer offensive against weeds and slugs. As soon as you can tell your plants and seedlings from the weeds hand weed (especially perennial weeds) on days when the soil is wet, hoe on dry and sunny days. Trap and destroy slugs at every opportunity – it will make a huge difference to your later battles, I was away from my garden for 7 weeks last spring and the slugs ate 90% of it. Making an effort now will probably save you lots more effort later. Have a good clean up of your garden, that way the slugs will have fewer places to hide apart from your traps ;)

Lots to do indoors, it’s a bit of a logistics nightmare starting about now. You may already have onions, peppers etc (chillis, aubergine), celery, celeriac, parsley growing. Once the onions, celery, celeriac, parsley have germinated they can go anywhere light and frost free; the peppers etc should be potted on to about 3″ (7cm) pots and put somewhere warm and light. In April the tender beans (french and pole), cucumbers and squashes will demand your propagator, meanwhile use your propagator (or warm, light space) for…

Tomatoes, sow as suggested for peppers; basil and other herbs from seed, do like parsley ( both in my February calendar). Lettuce, early leeks and early brassicas I do in seed trays like peppers but skip the potting on stage and plant out direct when ready from April onwards. Globe artichoke – 1 seed per 3″ (7cm) pot or module.

Above all, think and plan when you can’t do. The key time of year starts now, be ahead of the game if you can be; if you fall behind be realistically ruthless and cut the impossible to do the important. Waste no moments and know what you most need to achieve, use every minute.

Tags: off-the-grid, vegetable_garden, vegetables, Phoenix, growing-veg, crops