Seasonal Growing Tips
If you have had a few weeks (or even months) away from your plot, now is the time to get back to it, to avoid being left behind by the rush of Spring growth – your last chance to dig out brambles and other invasive weeds before they start to grow again rampantly. Make sure that your beds are ready, and mulched with compost and/or manure. If you sowed winter green manure now may be the time to dig it in. Look out for wildlife when digging look out for slow worms and hedgehogs – they are gardeners’ friends and they may be hibernating in compost bins or under weed control matting. This is a wonderful time of year for bird watching at Whetstone.
March is the big month for sowing seeds, if you are lucky enough to have some indoor space with good light. Tomatoes, peppers and chillies benefit from being started off indoors as they need a long growing season. The advantage of seed sowing is that you have a far wider ranger of plants available to you and it’s cheaper, of course. If you don’t have anywhere to raise seedlings, don’t despair, you can buy plants when they appear in the shops in May, online or, best of all, at the Whetstone Stray Plant Sale.
Seed potatoes should be ‘chitting’ now – sitting in egg boxes in sunlight with one eye pointing upwards to develop into a shoot before planting.
Pruning of apples and pears should be done by the end of March, but stone fruits (plums, cherries, apricots etc ), should wait until the Spring or Summer, to avoid possible viruses.
Strawberry plants and asparagus crowns can be planted now.
Plant peas and broad beans can be sown in the ground but warm up the soil first under a cloche or a piece of plastic. Starting them off in a pot makes them less attractive to mice.