March Gardening

In January, we consulted our planting schedule and garden layout to refresh our concept of what will be planted where for the spring garden. 

February was a month of preparation and assembling the structure of your garden. It was month of finishing the winter garden of October through January, and transitioning to the upcoming spring garden.

We bought and started seed, or located transplants from local sources.  And we sorted out the details of preparing one raised bed, setting up one row tunnel, and planting something in that bed.  If we haven't completed the February challenge, we should take as much time as we need to do it now.  February was the chance for sorting out the details.

March is the month for planting the Spring garden.  Now that the details are worked out, we need to replicate our success three more times.  We have three more beds to prepare, two of which will need row covers.

For each bed:

• Amend the soil: add 1 bag of compost, 1/3 bale peat, 2.5 qts vermiculite, 2 lbs of Garden-Tone, 1 lb rock phosphate or greensand. (This is the Andre Viette mix)  Mix this batch in a wheelbarrow and add to one bed.
• Apply this as a top dressing between existing plants, and more thickly when plants are harvested.
• Set up 5 hoops over the 12 feet of each raised bed, 3 feet apart.  Each hoop is 1/2" grey plastic electrical conduit roughly 8 feet long.  The ends are placed over rebar or inside 1" pipe.
• Cover with 6 mil plastic or agribon row covers.  20' by 10 feet.  That gives us 4' on the ends to reach the bottom of the bed.
• Use pvc clips to hold the cover to the end hoops.
• Secure the edges to 5/4 x 6" decking boards and clamp to the raised bed or weight to the ground.
• Turn the compost boxes.  Adjust moisture and brown material as necessary.  Consider adding one box to the tumbler to have it ready by May.

Harvest

Last month we began the harvest of the winter garden, which we will continue in March. 

Each week, harvest one cabbage head and one bulb of garlic.  Cut and  harvest one handful of Kale, and one parsnip as an accent root.  This will continue in April, with a final harvest in May.
 

Plant the bed:

• Consult the Garden Layout for the spring season.
• As the winter crops are harvested, replace them with the new spring crops:
• Transplant available seedlings from inside.  By now, started seed should be 4 weeks old.  You still have time to start seed in the first week of March, particularly to fill in gaps or harvested produce.  
• Purchase the rest of your transplants from garden centers.
• Work in 4' x 4' raised bed sections, planting groupings of 1 - 6, depending on the size of the finished plant.  
• You don't have to fully plant everything.  Feel free to leave gaps for later transplants or succession plantings.

Bed 1:
Continue to replace Cabbages and Garlic with the Lettuce and Radish group:  2 lettuce plants and 6 radish seeds direct-sown using seed tape or high viz coated seeds.  This should cover half the bed, so we'll need 12 lettuce plants.

For the other half of the bed, plant 2 Bok Choi and 6 Green Onions, for a total of 12 bok choi and 36 green onions.

Bed 2:

Replace Kale and Parsnips with:

Half of the bed: 2 Broccoli Greens and 1 Rutabaga:  total is 12 broccoli greens and 6 rutabaga

Half of the bed:  Swiss Chard, Red Onions:  total is 6 chard and 12 onions.

The March Challenge is to plant something in each of the beds by the end of the month.