Category Archives: 10 things to do in March

MARCH MADNESS!

Where as March is known as March Madness for basketball followers here in the US, I think of March as a time to get busy in the garden-definitely March madness!

Here is a list of things to do in the garden for March:

-Finish your garden plans! What are you growing this season?

-Finish ordering your seeds or getting your seeds if you haven’t already. Better hurry-many seed companies are getting behind in orders again.

-If you like to grow your own seedlings (and you should) get your light table and heating mat out (if you haven’t already). Use T-5 (better-more energy efficient)or T-3 florescent lights. I use the ‘daylight’ ones-gives your seedlings the whole spectrum of light waves. They produce less ‘leggy’ veggies.

-Start tomato seeds 4-6 weeks indoors before May 15. I will start mine on March 23 this year with the idea to set them out in early May (weather permitting) in wall of waters. If you don’t have wall of waters, you’ll have to wait till after May 15 to plant them whether you buy them or grow your own. Pepper and eggplant seeds should be planted 8-10 weeks indoors before May 15. Same goes for peppers and eggplants. I don’t put out those transplants till JUNE 1 in wall of waters as they hate cold nights and can stall out if you try to sneak them in earlier. Trust me-I’ve learned the hard way.

-Get your soil tested to see what amendments you might need to add to it. I do mine every 2-3 years.

-Put compost/amendments on your garden beds and lightly dig or rake in.

-Hurry up and finish pruning your fruit trees. Not much time left. EEK! I better do this now!

-Prune back your raspberries (within 3-4 inches of ground), prune your blackberries (better google this one depends on the variety you are growing), thin out your ‘mother’ strawberries. Strawberries slow way down when you leave in the mother plants and you want to make room for the newer plants (which produce more fruit), trim back your grape plants (this again is how you started as to how to prune now-google your variety). EEK! I better do this now!

-Spray your fruit trees with dormant oil before their buds turn color to smother any dormant bugs. EEK! I better do this now!

-WATER your trees and plants.

-Plant COOL SEASON vegetable seeds like peas, OUTSIDE on ST. PATRICK’S DAY or later.  Some varieties include lettuces, spinach, arugula, bok choy, broccoli/cauliflower, cabbage, peas, radishes, mustard, kale, fava beans and other greens. Cover them with row cover at night for those freezing nights. And don’t forget to keep watering them for good germination. Tomorrow (St. Patrick’s Day)- green seed planting day and green beer!

Growing cool season lettuce

IMG_1923

Cool season lettuces and spinach in germination tray, ready to transplant into bigger pots

A friend of mine said the other night that she stopped trying to grow lettuce because it always gets too bitter. But growing lettuces in the spring can be easy-you just have to start earlier than you think you do. If you start seeds in late April, you’re too late as the weather can go from cold days to hot days very quickly and that is when they can bolt and become bitter so you’ll want to harvest earlier.

Since most lettuces are cool season crops and take around 45-55 days to mature, we need to back up our start date to sometime in February/March or even earlier inside under lights (like I did) and harvest in April or early May before it gets hot.

Be sure to grow lettuces that are cold tolerant-it should say on the seed packets. This year I started the first lettuces back on January 15 inside my house under grow lights with no heat-this is very early so I’m pushing it.

IMG_1893

Lettuce transplanted un into bigger pots or pony paks.

Then I transplanted them up from the germination tray into a pony pak on January 20. Then I  transplanted the plants into my greenhouse on February 17. That’s about 4 weeks old when I put them out in the ground.  My greenhouse is unheated so I have to cover them everynight and on cold days with 2 layers of row cover but so far they are doing well. Tonite is 13°F so let’s see if they survive…

Meanwhile I started more from seeds on Feb 03 and they were transplanted into the pony paks February 25 so if tonite kills the others in the greenhouse, these should go out into the greenhouse in another 1-2 weeks. Basically the whole process from starting lettuce seeds to putting out into a greenhouse or coldframe or as the season goes on takes about 4-5 weeks.

You can even put them in a raised bed or mini hoophouse with heavy row cover directly over them by the time April rolls around. So if you plant them in first week of March, you will be able to pick leaves 45 days later or around April 15. By the time everyone else is just starting their lettuce seeds, you will be enjoying the lettuces while they are sweet before it gets too hot.

Early Spring Planting-Three Important Factors

Three important factors should be considered before planting seeds in early spring:

Amount of daylight hours-In the winter the sun is weaker in the northern hemisphere and we have less daylight hours. If you plant seeds too early either outside or in a greenhouse, the seedlings will be spindling when they germinate. Once we have 10 hours of daylight (we currently have over 10 hrs), we can start planting our cold hardy seeds. So in Santa Fe, we now have enough daylight hours. But wait, there are several more factors we need to consider before we plant seeds.

Soil temperature for germination for different vegetable seeds

Soil temperature for germination for different vegetable seeds

Soil temperature-If you are thinking of planting OUTSIDE, forget about it, your soil is probably frozen so of course you can’t plant anything! Even if it’s not frozen, it’s probably still too cold to plant outside. However it will warm up soon. How can you tell what temperature your soil is? You’ll need a soil thermometer. I prefer a compost thermometer that is about 18″ long so you can check both the soil and a compost pile. A soil thermometer is invaluable, as different veggies like to germinate at different soil temperatures. Insert it about the depth of the root zone of the plants, about 4”-6″ in the soil to see how warm it is. Notice the chart above gives an optimum range for each veggie.  If you have a cold frame, hoophouse or greenhouse your soil is probably much warmer already. So are you ready to plant? Not quite. There is one more factor to consider.

Air Temperature-The air temperature is also important and is the main thing people think of in considering when to plant seeds. It’s too cold at night to plant most veggie seeds outside or even in a greenhouse without extra protection BUT there are some wintergreens that are very cold hardy, some even hardy below 32°F at night. Even in an unheated cold frame or greenhouse, the temperature dips below freezing at nights so if you have a one, I suggest you put some row cover (winter weight-.9-1.0 mm.) over your beds. If you don’t have a greenhouse and will be planting outside in early spring, definitely put row cover over it at night but don’t forget to check your soil temperatures too.

I’ve compiled a list of these very cold hardy crops that can be started in a greenhouse now if the soil temperature and daylight hours are good. Many of these cold hardy crops can be planted outside as soon as the soil warms ups in March. For the list go to my blog at: http://giantveggiegardener.com.

So many things to do for the vegetable garden in March!

Time to Get Busy!!

March is an incredibly busy month for gardeners. So many things to do (or should do) that it makes my head swim. New garden sections to make, ordering my final seeds, starting seeds inside, starting seeds outside, transplanting seedlings, amending the beds-the list goes on and on and I love it! Soon my hands will be brown again from digging in the dirt. No wonder I liked to play in the dirt when I was a little kid!

Next I will complete the new beds, finish the area around the new garden, make two gates for the new garden section to keep the rabbits out. Then I will put horse manure as a soil amendment on all the beds both new and old. My trailer was so full, my Forerunner could barely pull it. I bet I have about 2000 lbs of poop in it!  The stuff I got is still a little hot (oh really? the manure was a little steamy when it was loaded!) but will cool down over the next 2 months before I plant tomatoes. I’ll use my really aged (6 months or more) horse manure, aged chicken manure and compost for the potatoes and fava beans that will go in the old section later this month. The vegetables I plant in May will get this newer ‘aged’ manure as it will have time to decompose and cool down.

I’ve decided to put the greenhouse on the back burner until the garden is in and then have it ready for fall which makes more sense anyways as it will be hot in June.

2012 Vegetable Seed Lists

2012 SEED LISTS

I’ve researched and updated the seed list for this year.  I created a legend with abbreviations for each seed/nursery and then put them at the end of each seed listed.  I also show which tomatoes Amy Goldman’s ‘The Heirloom Tomato’ book recommends which I use as my ‘tomato bible’! I’ve put this in my page section called ‘Seed Lists’  at the top of the blog for later reference.

Here is the legend:
AFN-Agua Fria Nursery (plants)-1409 Agua Fria Street/Santa Fe, NM/505-983-4831
SFGH–Santa Fe Greenhouse (plants)-2904 Rufina Street/Santa Fe, NM/505-473-2700
BH– Baker Heirloom (seeds)
SSE– Seed Saver Exchange (seeds)
TS–Territorial Seeds
JSKG–John Scheepers Kitchen Garden
KS–Kitazawa Seed (seeds)
WCS–West Coast Seeds (seeds)
CG–Cooks Garden (seeds)
TF–Tomato Fest (seeds)
TG–Tomato Growers (seeds)
TT–Totally Tomatoes (seeds)

2012 TOMATOES
RED

*AG/Pantano Romanesco-red/70-80 days-BH,TF(seeds)
*AG/Costoluto Genovese-red/78 days-TG(seeds)
*AG/Goldsman Italian American-red-BH (seeds)
Fireworks-red-50 days-TG (seeds)
Honey hybrid-red-76 days-TG (seeds)
Beefy Boy-red-70 days-AFN (plants)
Original Goliath/pio-red-65 days-TT-seeds

ORANGE/YELLOW

Jaune Flamme–70-80 days-SSE (seeds)
Aunt Gertie’s Gold-TG-75-80 days (seeds)
Lemon Boy-AFN (plants)-hybrid

BI-COLOR

Striped German-bicolor-super sweet-super sweet-SFGH (plants)
*AG/Gold Medal-bicolor-75-80 days-BH (seeds)
*AG/Ananas Noir-fantastic flavor, I’m growing 2 this year-BH, SSE (seeds) plants)
Virginia Sweet-super sweet, AFN (plants)

BLACK OR PURPLE


Paul Robeson-black/75-85 days-AFN (plants)
Cherokee Purple/80 days-AFN (plants)
Black Pear-70 days-AFN (plants)
Brown Sugar-BH- ?days
Southern Nights-BH-? days

CHERRY TOMATOES

*AG/Black Cherry-black/75 days-AFN (plants)
*AG/Green Grape-green/AFN (plants) or SSE (seeds)
Sun Sugar-yellow cherry-62 days-TT (seeds)-hybrid
Golden Pearl-GS-hybrid

* AG-recommended by Amy Goldsman’s book, ‘The Heirloom Tomato’

2012 VEGGIE LIST
BEANS-Rattlesnake bean snap OG (remarkably flavored pole bean)-SSE (seeds)
Emerite bean, pole bean-JSKG (seeds) ALSO
Tarbais bean pole-for dry bean
Fava Bean-for dry bean

CARROTS-Atomic Red-BH, Cosmic Purple-SSE, Paris Market-SSE

PEPPER-Shishito (Japanese non hot pepper)-AFN (plants) or KS(seeds)

SUMMER SQUASH-ZUCCHINI-Costata Romanesco (best tasting zuke around)-BH (seeds)
CALABICITAS SQUASH-seed from local grower

EGGPLANT-Fairy Tale (best sweet, no bitter taste and soft skin eggplant I’ve tasted)-AFN (plants) or TS (seeds)

FENNEL/FINOCCHIO-Di Firenze-BH (seeds)

CUCUMBERS-Parisian Pickling, De Bourbonne, Boothsby Blonde, Poona Kheera, Armenian and Russian- I grow cukes for either taste or which variety is best for different types of pickles-all BH (seeds)

CORN-again not this year (I’ll get it from our Farmers Market)

LETTUCES–Provencal Mix, Mesclun Mix, Buttercrunch, Yugoslavian Red, Santoro Lettuce, and Little Gem-CG (seeds)

SPINACH-Bloomsdale-CG (seeds) and Tyee

CARROTS-Cosmic Red BH (seeds) and

ARUGULA-Apollo-SSE (seeds)

BOK CHOY-Extra Dwarf Pak Choy-BH (seeds)

CHARD-5 Color Silverbeet-SSE (seeds) and Argentata Swiss Chard-JSKG (seeds)

PEAS-Dwarf Sugar Gray-SSE, Oregon Spring II-BH (seeds)

TOMATILLO-Green-70-80 days-SSE (seeds) or -AFN (plants)

JERUSALEM ARTICHOKE

POTATOES-fingerling types
2012 GIANT PUMPKINS
All came from private growers
895 Grande 08 (1016 Daletas x 1385 Jutras)
421 Cabossel (895 Grande x self )
1046 Grande 10 (901 Hunt x 1385 Jutras)

OTHER GIANT VEGETABLES
GIANT GREEN SQUASH-all came from private grower
340 Cabossel 11 which came from 903 Noel 07 (848 McKenzie x self)

GIANT MARROW-(like giant Zucchini)-all came from private growers
75.4 Wursten 09
62 Cabossel 11

GIANT TOMATOES
-7.18 N. Harp 09 (5.58 Timm x open)-private grower
5.416 N, Harp 09 (5.58 Harp x open)-private grower
Big Zac/TT (seeds)

GIANT PEAR GOURD-private grower
103 Cabossel 11 which came from 89 Scherber 10

LONG GOURD-private grower
135 Jacobus 10

GIANT SUNFLOWERS
-Titan-SSE, BH (seeds)

2012 EDIBLE FLOWER LIST-
Following is the list of edible flowers that will be planted or are already on the property:
Borage-great honeybee plant
Calendula-Orange King-BH (seeds)
Chives-AFN (plants)
Cilantro-AFN (plants)
Dill-AFN (plants)
Lavender (in existing different area)
Marigold-Lemon Gem-TS (seeds) this is the only edible marigold
Nasturtiums-Tip Top -CG (seeds)-prettiest nasturiums
Pansies-get them anywhere
Violas-get them anywhere
Roses (in different existing area)
Black Oil Seed sunflower (for the birds!)-WCS (seeds)

2012 HERBS-Following is a list of herbs that will be planted or exist on the property

Basil (Genevese)-new SHGH (plants), 
Lime Basil-new-SFGH (plants), 
Thai Basil-new-SFGH (plants)

Oregano-must replant rabbits ate it this winter

Thyme-exists
, Lemon Thyme-exists
,

Chives-exists
.

Dill-usually self seeds
,

Marjoram-new-SFGH (plants)

Mint-exists

Sage-exists
Lavender-exists

Winter Savory-exists

Lemon Verbena-exists

10 Things to Do in March in the Garden

Now is the beginning of our season for fruit and vegetable gardeners. I got my light boxes out! Woo! Hoo! Here we go! Here are 10 things to do for or in your garden this month.

1. Finish ordering your seeds or getting your seeds if you haven’t already.

2. Get your light tables and heating mats out and ready to go. Use florescent lights that are at least 3000 lumen. I use the daylight ones. They produce less ‘leggy’ veggies.

3. Start tomato, pepper and eggplant seeds indoors to set out later as transplants depending on variety.

4. Finish your garden plans

5. Get your soil tested to see what amendments you might need to add to it.

6. Put  horse manure that has been aged for at least 6 months on your garden beds and dig in. Don’t put on ‘hot’ manure.

7. Hurry up and finish pruning your fruit trees. Not much time left.

8. Spray your fruit trees with dormant oil before their buds turn color to smother any dormant bugs.

9. Water your trees.

10. Plant COOL SEASON vegetable seeds OUTSIDE on ST. PATRICK’S DAY.  Some varieties include carrots, beets, lettuces, spinach, arugula, bok choy, swiss chard, onions, brocolli, cabbage, peas, radishes, mustard, kale and other greens.