March In My Potager
- themarigoldgc
- Mar 4, 2023
- 6 min read
Spring like things are happening! Days are getting longer, with the official first day of spring just a few weeks off! Though today is a bit of a chilly day, I am excited about the arrival of spring. Hope springs eternal in this girl!
I have so many gardening things on the agenda for this month but exactly what gets done when will depend on what the weather does. Will we get more frigid temps? More snow? Any rain towards the end of the month?
Here are the things on my March Agenda
Greenhouse
Getting the greenhouse ready for action. Hubby will be home mid-month to help me empty out the greenhouse so I can start prepping it for spring planting and growing. In winter, it is our hold-all area for patio furniture, flower pots, wagons, all sorts of garden and yard supplies. Time to haul all that stuff out of there... even if it sits in a snowbank for a few days/weeks, hah!
Whether your greenhouse sits empty in winter or does double duty as a storage centre, March is the month to clean it up and get it ready for planting. Pick a nice, sunny warm day to get in there to dust out the dirt and cobwebs, top up the beds with a bit of compost if you did not do so in fall, hang up a rod or two for hanging baskets, set up your planting area soil, compost/manure, pots, trays, all that stuff. Get yourself ready to go.
Pruning of trees and shrubs happens this month, on any nice warm, sunny day. Ideally the snow will be gone when we prune so that we can get rid of suckers and anything that might have been damaged at the base, but if not, we can always do that bit later. You really need to get the water spouts (branches that go straight up) on the fruit trees before they bud out though.
We don't have much for food trees, just this one apple tree that you see in the picture, and a Saskatoon, but quite a few ornamental trees and shrubs. Everything has been very well cared for, so is just to keep it up, nothing major needs doing. I love the shape of our apple tree, it is so good!
If you have currants, gooseberries, jostaberries, that sort of thing, you want to get in there and just clean things up. Take out anything dead, damaged, diseased first, then you take out criss-crossed branches, just opening it up like a vase so light gets into the shrub for more berries and better tasting ones at that.
If you have weak arms, wrists, or have arthritis in your hands, like I do, this tool is indispensable for pruning larger branches. I used to have to throw myself on top of the loppers, using my body weight to do the pruning! This wee mini chainsaw is perfect.
Seed Starting
My last frost here is between the 11th and the 25th of May, depending on the source one looks at, so I am using the 20th just to make certain. If last frost happens earlier, that is fine, too. Just means I can put the plants out to harden off earlier.
To make it easy to keep track of what to plant when, in my planner I find the last frost date and count back 12 weeks from that date, putting the # of weeks till last frost at the beginning of each week. I am currently 10 weeks out. In Nanaimo, you are 7 weeks out (April 28th).
How do you know when to start sowing? On the back of most all seed packages, it will tell you how many weeks before last frost to start seeds indoors.
So, last week I started veggies that said to start 10 to 12 weeks before last frost. The veggies on my grow list that I started were peppers, eggplants, celery, red and yellow onions. To prevent lanky seedlings, I start things on the latter end of the recommendation.
This week, I've been starting a whole bunch of flowers; marigolds, sweet alyssum, calendula, thunbergia, dahlias (from seed), zinnias, asters. You can also start coleus, lobelia, and all sorts of perennials, if they are on your grow list. I wish I had some geraniums as I would take cuttings now for a whole bunch of plants to put into my baskets and planters this summer. Geraniums are my flower go-to's.
Next week, I will start some more veggies again, anything that says to start 8 to 10 weeks before last frost. For me, that will be broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, cabbage, parsley and chives. Tomatoes I will start at the end of March.
*tip 1- if you are growing vegetables inside a greenhouse, grow some trailing alyssum to put in baskets inside the greenhouse for organic pest control. (more on planting flowers for pest control coming soon.)
*tip #2- if you are a smoker, wash your hands well with soap and water before you play around with soil, seeds, or transplants, especially tomatoes and peppers as they are very prone to tobacco mosaic virus.
My greenhouse is not heated or insulated so I will not be using it for the heat lovers until late spring, with a portable heater brought in for the cooler nights. I will, however, be able to put the cool weather veggies in there earlier. If it is super chilly still, I will use the mini greenhouse that I purchased last month for a greenhouse within a greenhouse and double the warmth (4 degrees warmer than outside).
Till then, if I need to get stuff outside to prevent stretching, and also make room on my seeding table, I'll put my plants into clear tote bins that I can put outside for the day and bring inside again for the night. They are light and stackable, so super easy to move about and won't take up a lot of room. They have small ones at the dollar store for about $4 or $5 or get larger ones from box stores for a bit more money.
Once you see bulbs for sale at the shops, or when yours in storage start to sprout, is time to pull out some big pots. Pot up the bulbs and place in a heated greenhouse or in front of a bright, cool window or patio door.
I've mentioned this before, but in case you missed it earlier, I use this brand of potting soil, or Sunshine #4 for my seeding as it is nice and porous, has lots of perlite in it for the roots to easily grow and spread.
What I forgot to mention though, is that I use this potting soil for everything. I use it for transplanting, hanging baskets, every pot and planter I make. So, if you do a lot of growing and planting, get a big cube of it. I will get a couple of cubes for the greenhouse but for right now, inside the house, two of these bags is plenty for my seedlings.
The seeding phase is the easiest. A bit of bottom heat, potting soil, pots, and away you go.
The seedling stage is where things go off the rails. People get stretched out, weak seedlings that are prone. Bugs will always go to stressed out plants over healthy ones.
Seedlings get stretched out if they are grown too warm or not bright enough. Sounds like inside the house, doesn't it?
Ideas to prevent this stretching out after germination?
1. Do not start seeding early. The earlier you start, the sooner they need cool and bright.
2. If you have a sunroom, heated bright porch, or heated greenhouse, grow your seedlings in there. Keep it at about 10°C (50°F).
3. If you have to stay inside the house, you will have to find the coolest part of your house and invest in some kind of lighting system for 12 to 16 hours of light daily.
4. Or, if you are like me and not getting grow lights ( I will be getting a fancy heated greenhouse so the lights will no longer be needed next year) once your seedlings have been potted up into their own individual pots, put them in those plastic totes - out in daytime, in at nighttime. Place in a spot where it is about 10°C, so that may be in dappled shade (natural light is brighter than inside your house).
The trick is to keep seedlings cool-ish and bright.
Oh, and keep them on the dry-ish side.
They need damp soil to germinate but afterwards water only when they soil starts to dry out.
I will post more as we see what the weather brings us ; )
Happy Almost Spring ~ Tanja
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