The March 'To Do' Spring Preparation List For Gardeners

In areas where there are cold winters, March is time for gardeners-at-heart to be planning and getting ready to plant the coming summer’s bounty! Your soil should soon be workable for planting your first cool weather seeds and preparing your garden beds.

March Gardening To-Do List

1. As early as possible, think of the veggies and greens you would like to plant this year. Check out online catalogs to get ideas and consider a garden record book with spaces to record the dates of first and last frosts, starting seeds, direct-sowing seeds and other information.

Get your seeds!

It’s not too late!

Keep Monsanto out of your garden when you buy your vegetable seeds.

Many of the old-time garden seed companies have been bought out by the voracious mega-giant Monsanto. Here is a list of those that haven’t been.

Define Your Needs

2. Then think about your family’s veggie needs; decide what and approximately how much to plant to meet it.

I’ve compiled a list of helpful links for you to consult from other knowledgeable gardeners. Be sure to bookmark the ones you find especially helpful.

Layout Your Garden

3. Plan your vegetable garden on paper or use the interactive garden planner.

4. Find out your planting zone with the National Gardening Association’s USDA Hardiness Zone Finder. Not understanding this concept if you are new to gardening is a sure fire way to get disappointed, especially with perennial flowers, shrubs, and herbs.

5. Find your frost-free date in order to know the earliest date to plant in your area.

Think about Tools

Know the tools you’ll need for your projects, and have them ready. You wouldn’t begin a project or class with you children without having all the tools required supplies for the job. The same should be true for your outdoor/garden projects. It would be wasteful and frustrating to get halfway into a project and realize you have to clean up and head into town for ………

First weeks of March:

• When weather permits, empty compost bins and place about a 1 to 2 inch layer of compost over all garden beds.

• Carefully divide & replant perennials as they emerge. Save money by dividing your own perennials (and swapping with friends).

• If you have a frost-free cold frame, plant early spinach, lettuce and other hardy greens (cilantro, beets, chard, kale, mustard).

• March 1-15, begin to sow radish seeds and garlic bulbs tip up {4-6″ deep} directly into soil if it is workable. Within 2-3 weeks you should be able to add spinach, kale, lettuce, cilantro and other cool weather edibles.

Radish starts in the cool weather garden — radishes grow in very early spring ~ as soon as you can work the soil

It’s traditional to plant potatoes on St. Patrick’s Day, but if your garden soil feels tough like Play-Doh, wait until later to plant [and if it’s like chocolate cake, go ahead]!

Third and Fourth week in March:

You may plant blueberries, strawberries and grapes as soon as the soil is workable.

March 25-31, begin successive sowings of peas, spinach, leaf lettuce, onion sets, turnips and shallots.

Start seeds of tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, and other warm-season veggies indoors in little peat pots or your own starter kit. They will be placed outdoors after your frost-free date.

Clear away debris from flower beds and cut back any old tops of perennial grasses and plants such as sage, hydrangeas, etc. to allow the new growth to come up cleanly.

I saw new buds on the clematis yesterday. Prune all the dead vines away, but leave these buds which will provide you with with flowers this summer.

For Bulbs:

• Tulips, daffodils, grape hyacinths, and crocuses should be beginning to appear now.

• Deadhead and feed spring bulbs after flowering but do not remove leaves until they turn yellow, as that also feeds the bulb for healthy blooms next year.

• Pot up some spring bulbs like hyacinths, daffodils & tulips to bloom indoors. Plant Paper White Narcissus bulbs in gravel & water for fragrant indoor blooms in 6 weeks.

• After Amaryllis finishes blooming, cut old flower but not the leaves. Put in sunny location water & fertilize until end of summer so it will bloom next year.

• Plant summer bulbs such as day lilies, trumpet and Asiatic lilies, and corms of gladiolas.

Acidify Soil:

You can use naturally acidic pine needles to mulch any acid-loving plant like in this list. Or you can apply an organic product like this one for acid-loving fruiting (edible) plants.

If it is not for food (edible), you can use a non-organic product like this one.

• Azaleas, Rhododendrons

• Holly

• Blueberries

• Camellia

• Dogwood

• Gardenia

• Lupine

• Hydrangeas – to make pink hydrangeas turn blue (or to keep your blue ones from turning pink), increase the acidity of soil.

• Lily-of-the-Valley

• Magnolia

• Phlox

• Raspberry, Blackberries

• Strawberry

blueberries, raspberries, blackberries — These are all acid loving plants and often will not grow at all if the soil isn’t acidic enough, especially blueberries.

There is more than I can list here that can be accomplished during these warming March days to ready the garden and yard.

Throw on a jacket, your garden clogs, grab your gloves, breathe in deeply, and smile for the gifts from God right there outside your door.

“The first day of spring is one thing, and the first spring day is another. The difference between them is sometimes as great as a month.” ~Henry Van Dyke

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