Monthly Gardening Guide – March

Welcome to your Monthly Gardening Guide for March!  Below you will find information on what I will be doing, (or trying to do) for the month of March.  These are goals, not standards and some months I am on top of it and other months I blow it.  But somehow, and thankfully, the garden is forgiving.Your garden to-do list ay look different than mine, and that is okay.  Perhaps you will glean something from my list and please, if you have any suggestions, opinions or tips & tricks feel free to contact me!  I would love to hear from you.  Now, let’s get our hands dirty and get growing!

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Main Goal

This month in Texas is notoriously a roller coaster and tends to be very unpredictable weather-wise, have row covers at the ready for any late-season frosts or freezes that might damage perennials, fruit trees or even crops you have already planted (re-think that next year till at least after St. Patrick’s Day!) 😉

Prepare

Outside: Most vegetables prefer a slightly acidic soil (6.0 to 6.8 pH); pick up a pH test kit at a garden center to make sure yours is in the right range. Check out this article on soil testing.

 

 

 

No such luck? Make adjustments as recommended on the package, using organic matter to increase or decrease the soil’s acidity. Even if your test is good, you should amend the soil—i.e., add conditioners, such as compost, peat moss, or coir (coconut fiber), that improve its texture—yearly, and give perennial vegetables a boost by “side dressing” it with organic compost or aged manure. (Scatter the fertilizer along the sides of a row of plants; turn it into the existing soil with a spading fork and rake it smooth.) If you’re stuck with soil that’s beyond saving, consider building raised beds instead and filling them with good soil.

Inside: Start seeds of warm season crops such as tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, pumpkin, snap beans, squash, and sweet corn – if you haven’t already done that!! 🙂

Plant’em

Use a garden thermometer to determine if the soil temperature is at or above 40ºF. When it gets there, start planting the crops you’ve started for cool-season: kale, lettuce, spinach, and onions.  Plant these early in the month.

Warm season crops: Beans, tomatoes, corn, squash, cucumbers, melons and peppers plant 1-2 weeks after date of last killing frost for your specific area. Find the date of possible last frost here.

Cool season annuals: Use petunias, larkspurs, stocks, calendulas, sweet alyssum, foxglove.  Plant early in the month for longest growing time.

Warm season annuals: zinnias, marigolds, celosia, impatients, wax begonias and coleus 1-2 weeks after date of last killing frost.

Follow up with pentas, lantanas, moss rose, purslane, copper plants, purple fountain grass, firebush.

Summer and fall perennials: Now is the time to plant those perennials, check each plants prime blooming season and plan for a sequence of color.

Prune’em

• Prune evergreen and summer-flowering trees and shrubs. Prune spring-flowering shrubs only after they finish blooming.
• Divide and replant summer- and fall – blooming perennials.
• Scalp your lawn, get rid of winter stubble.
• Prune low hanging tree branches, do NOT prune Oak trees in spring to discourage Oak Wilt Fungus.

Feed’em

• Fertilize deciduous fruit trees when they leaf out.
• Continue fertilizing established roses, watering the day before and after application.
• Lawns, Pecans, Annuals, Perennials, Containers.

Look Out For’s & To-do’s

• Water lawns and gardens deeply once to twice a week, depending on the amount of rain. Do not overwater.
• Apply mulch around the base of edibles and flowers to conserve moisture (and prevent weeds).
• Once the fruit on your trees set, thin out the fruit to about 6 inches apart. This thinning encourages the fruit to grow bigger.
• Weeds are coming, weeds are coming.  Did you apply pre-emergent either from the garden center or your brew from home?
• Be watching for ladybugs and other beneficial insects to be in the stores and buy them!

 

Download a FREE Pest Solution Chart—->HERE

 

 

Monthly Garden Check-list for March

 

May you find joy & wonder in your garden, and may your hands always be dirty,

 

 

 

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