March Monthly Task List
It’s hard to believe it’s almost March.
March is a busy time in the garden as we have to prune the fruit trees and shrubs as well as start a large portion of the summer garden.
If you didn’t get to cleaning up your garden beds last fall, this is the month to do it. Trim out dead veggie and flower plant material and try and get your hands on some compost as soon as it’s available. Any and all preparation tasks that can be completed now, should be. This really does ease the overwhelm and help you focus on seed starting, hardening off, and your garden layout as the weeks fly by and the days warm up.
I bought a lot of new-to-us seeds again this year and I haven’t had the time to get them all into a list, but I as I struggled to locate all my brassica seedlings this morning, I’m determined to dump ALL our seeds onto our dining room table tomorrow and make sense of it all.
What to Sow Now
Cold Hardy Crops
The majority of my focus remains on cold hardy crops both indoors and direct seeding. From scallions to cabbage, I’ve started many seeds both indoors in 2” soil blocks as well as direct seeded into our cold frame. And all of these veggies can be sowed now (or try them under cover if your soil temperatures are over 45F):
Direct Seed
(soil temps 45F)
Radish
Salad turnips
Green onions
Arugula
Spinach
Cilantro
Bok Choy
Mustard Greens
Leaf lettuce
Head lettuce
Peas^
Carrots^
^Soil temps at 50F for direct seeding
Indoor Sowing
Artichokes
Cape gooseberries
Lemongrass
Celery (I’m waiting another week)
Storage onions
Fresh eating onions
Shallots
Leeks
Head lettuce
Kohlrabi
Kale
Cabbage (red, green, savoy, and napa)
Cauliflower
Broccoli
Beets
Fennel
A blend of several gomphrena varieties: Audray White, Raspberry Cream, and QIS Carmine.
Flowers to Sow in mid-March (6 weeks before last frost)
Come mid-March, I will embark on a pretty intense seed starting weekend with my peppers, eggplants, and some tomatoes. And, also, a group of slow to establish flowers including my beloved gomphrena (globe amaranth), finicky strawflower (I usually have terrible germination on those), slow to start snapdragons (which also self-seed but I have a few favorites I’ve saved seed from), and my wild card, dahlias from seed. If I decide to grow it, Mexican torch sunflower, a pollinator magnet, also needs about 6-8 weeks before last frost to do well so that would be another to plan for a mid-March sowing.
Alpha calendula is my current favorite variety.
If you yearn for super early blooms, try your hand at starting sweet alyssum and calendula in mid-March; they can withstand many light frosts and could get planted here by the end of April. If I start them soon, they will be flowering in early May. That’s a fun idea, and I may have to do just that! Join me.
What Not to Sow Yet — waiting until mid-March/8 weeks before last frost
I am not sowing my tomatoes, peppers, or eggplants just yet. And honestly, it’s killing me! I’m waiting until Monday, March 24 this year.
I am really trying to limit the amount of resources needed to get our garden going, using less energy, soil, and time while still aiming to have ripe tomatoes before July off my cherries. It worked last year, so should work again this year, right? It’s a test of my trust of these plants, and of my years of accumulated knowledge to take this leap of faith. My end-goal is two fold: I’d love to try to develop a system for direct seeding everything (if possible) to be as environmentally friendly as possible. Secondarily, someday, John and I will be “retired” and will likely snow bird for a few months in winter so I want to know I can return here in March and still have a dynamite garden by mid-June. So this is my proving ground for our future lifestyle changes.
While I certainly don’t need to sow any herbs yet, I’ve decided to add some to an early tray for us to use now, which include thyme and parsley. In my experience, herbs don’t need a huge indoor head start – maybe 6 weeks before last frost. I’ve seen a lot of gardening experts say to start herbs in January and that is not at all what I would do, ever.
It’s important to remember that what I am choosing to sow or omit is a direct reflection of our family’s culinary palate. Your grow list I would expect to look differently. For example, maybe the act of sowing tomatoes in winter really fuels you and buoys your mental health. By all means, sow it. I’ll keep you posted on my direct seeding sowing schedule too, as I do fully intend to direct seed just about everything (minus celery, eggplants, and some of our peppers) out in that extra low tunnel as a side by side experiment to witness the seasonality of direct seeding compared to an indoor head start and transplanting.
