March In The Vegie Patch + Greenhouse

As the mornings and nights start to cool off, the soil temperature soon follows. As soil cools, microbes, worms and plant growth slows. Grab the planting window! Focus on planting autumn and winter crops while a little warmth lingers to keep the flow of good food coming into your kitchen.

What to plant and sow in March

Finding space to sow and plant winter crops takes lateral thinking when all the beds are full.

• Look beyond the veggie patch if needs be – is there space in flower beds or beneath fruit trees. Any sunny space with free drainage is fair game!
• Create space by pruning back older crops like tomatoes, cucumbers, courgettes, flowers, seeding leafy greens, and squash.
• Team slow growing crops like leeks and brassicas with quicker crops like bok choy, salads, radish, coriander and beetroot.

Direct sow

• Carrots, parsnips, radish, coriander and rocket.
• Sow miners lettuce and corn salad along the picking edges. Sow thickly – they’re such sweet little things and are easily outcompeted. Let them flower and go to seed when they’re done and they’ll come up every Autumn/ Spring year after year = solid gold!
• Sow Mizuna with calendula, saladings or leafy greens, or use it to plug any gap – such a handy winter green, and another hearty self seeder.
• Greencrops: my fav combo for this time of year contains as many of these as I can get my hands on – phacelia, crimson clover, broadbean, oat, daikon, lupin, vetch, flax and winter rye.
• Companion flowers: e.g. calendula, cosmos, cornflower, bishops flower, honesty and poppy.

Tray sow

• Spring onions, red or brown onions.
• Another lot of broccoli, cauli, cabbage for planting out next month.
• Peas in toliet rolls or plug trays.
• Companions flowers like snapdragon, chamomile, stock and heartsease.

Direct or tray sow

• Beetroot in plug trays or along the picking edge.
• Broadbeans, saladings, endive, kale or spinach
• Sweetpeas. Essential!

Transplant

• Early garlic. If there’s one thing we can do to beat rust its to get in early.
• Another lot of broccoli, cabbage and cauli. Go for a mixture to create a diversity in the kitchen. Plant them amongst greencrops for a great beginning!
• Lots of parsley and leafy greens like kale, chard and silverbeet. Humble but essential they are the backbone of my winter kitchen, and winter wellness. If you can’t eat them all, they are amazing additions to the compost!
• Plant celery into a lovely pile of rotten organic matter or compost. I grow my winter celery in the greenhouse – not for the warmth, but to avoid rust which it always gets when I grow it outside.
• Leeks, spring onions, red or brown onions.
• Landcress for winter supply
• Saladings will need to be planted undercover (greenhouse/ cloche/ porch) when soil temps dip to 12°C and night temps to 10°C.
• Companion flowers.

Harvest

• Check kumara and pumpkin to see if they are ready to harvest.
• Harvest potatoes when the tops have died down if you want to store them.
• Harvest shellout beans.
• Keep up with daily harvests of berries, tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchinni and beans to keep plants productive and pests at bay. Even if the harvests are small, its worth it for plant health.

Regular + odd jobs

Boost autumn and winter crops like brassicas, leeks and leafy greens with liquid feed, either a homemade herbal or seaweed brew or a biological brew. Use as often as weekly. Liquid feed is a fab pick me up after stressful weather events like big winds, cold snaps or intense heat.

• Check in on your soil: feel it, smell it, eyeball it. Use this info to help you choose where to plant your next lot of crops – best soil for heavy feeders!
• Check before you water. It’s easy to forget once the weather cools off. At the same time be careful not to overwater – mildews and fungus ahoy with the damp mornings and evenings. Checking first saves the day.
• Squash cabbage white caterpillars, or cover your crop.
• Spray passionvine hoppers with Neem, weekly if the populations are overwhelming. It wont be long now before they slow down.
• Collect flower, greencrop and lettuce seeds. Gather them when fully dried, but before the seed drops. Store in labelled paper bags or jars, or crunch them up and lay them down where you want them to grow next.
• Let a few parsley, chard and perpetual beet plants develop seedheads and go to seed, and you’ll never need to buy plants again.
• Make compost. A new, easy peasy compost pile each month will keep your garden going. Build a pile direct on top of any beds that have dried out or been taken over by weeds.

Do an autumn chop-and-drop

With the shrinking daylight, dewy ground and cooler mornings comes the potential for heat loving crops to falter, and mildew or other fungal delights to arise. A well timed chop-and-drop saves the day by opening plants up to extra warmth, light or air – whatever it is they need.

Grab your seceteurs and wheelbarrow, and check in on your greenhouse, veggies and perennials. Prune any diseased or ratty foliage, or anything that’s blocking flow (light, air, access).

• Use the chopped up trimmings as a delish mixed mulch, or add them to your compost pile.
• If you need to remove plants entire, chop them off at soil level – don’t pull them out! Especially lush large stalks and roots like corn, sunflowers or broccoli.

Save seeds

Your own saved seed is so valuable – it grows stronger year on year as it evolves to your unique environment. It germinates fast, and gradually becomes pest and disease resistant. Best of all, no matter what happens in the world outside, with a stash of seeds, you can still grow your vegies.

Not all seed are simple to save though. Corn needs a block of 100 or so of plants to keep the genes strong, brassicas cross pollinate so plants must be covered while flowering, and cucurbits are down right promiscuous – be mindful of the families you are growing if you want to save seed otherwise cucumber/ zuchinni/ pumpkin surprise! The easy ones are the self fertile ones – leafy greens, flowers, herbs, greencrops, beans and tomatoes.

Save tomatoes and beans with care, choosing the best fruits on the best plants and store them dry.
Leafy greens, flowers, herbs and greencrops can be saved in a more rustic way. Here are 3 option starting with the easiest.

• Leave them to drop their seed, and come up again of their own accord.
• Chop dry seedheads off, and lay them down where you want them to grow next.
• Hang the seedheads upside down in pillowcases, and hang them up to finish drying. Then shake the seeds out and store them in labelled jars. Use this method to create your own DIY living mulch of greencrops, herbs and flowers. No need to save them individually if you’ll be sowing them as a mixture.

In the Greenhouse

As things start to cool off, you may find you aren’t needing to water everyday. Cooler days means there’s less evaporation – be mindful of not over-watering. Tomatoes, basil, peppers or aubergines wont thank you for it!

• Check soil before you water.
• Water the soil, not the foliage, in the morning, so its dry by nightfall.
• Keep training and pruning tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers et all for airflow.
• Sow a mixed greencrop beneath the still growing tomatoes and peppers. A healthy, vibrant way to finish the growing season, and best prep for whatever is next – crops, chooks, or some downtime.

If mildew or fungal disease show up:

On old foliage, no worries – its par for the course. Prune it off alongside any other surrounding foliage that’s blocking airflow.

On new foliage, still no worries!, but do slow it down. Prune whatever is blocking airflow, and dose weekly with a milk and molasses brew. Dilute milk 1:10 into your watering can, and add 1 tablespoon of molasses (dissolved beforehand in a bit of hot water.) Pour it on the foliage and soil.