Welcome to spring, a busy and exciting time to get back into the garden!
Depending on where you are located, you may want to hold off for another month or so on your spring planting but make sure you are ready to go once you're pretty sure you won't be hit with any sneaky cold snaps.
Here are some things you could start thinking about doing this month:
Start sowing summer crops in glass houses or warm spots, but hold off planting outside until soil temperatures increase, especially if you’re not up here in the winterless north!
This month is great for planting out peas, lettuce, bok choi, celery, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, kohlrabi, spring onions, beetroot, radish, coriander, mizuna, rocket, fennel, parsley and spinach and it's especially good month for getting those carrots in.
Flowers you could start sowing include sweet peas, cornflowers, cosmos, poppies, nasturtium, marigold, viola, calendula, snapdragon, sunflowers (only in warmer areas) and zinnia.
If you have some seed potatoes that have chitted then you can pop these into the ground now. I like to make a trench, line it with comfrey leaves, then put my potatoes on top of the leaves, before mounding soil and straw on top.
I’ve started to feed all my fruit trees with rotted horse manure, tui organic seaweed fertilizer, and mulching them with the chop n drop material from my support trees. You could also feed them with organic specific fertilisers, compost, straw mulch, or whatever you have available. I will also be planting more living mulches this spring, especially around my fruit trees.
This is a great time to divide some of your herbs and perennials to help keep your plants healthy and to propagate more. I’ve made a start on this with all my creeping herbs and plants like mint, alpine strawberries, orange berry, lemon balm, etc.
We have had to ramp up slug and snail patrol as we seem to have had a boom here at the farm. Luckily my vege garden is very healthy and isn’t taking too big a hit, but I’m removing at least forty snails every morning that have regrouped after my night raids. I now have a kotare waiting for the snail breakfast that I lop down the hill (I can’t bring myself to squish them) most mornings! So, this is your friendly reminder if you’re starting to plant out seedlings that you may want to keep areas tidy so there are fewer snail and slug hotels around your garden bed.
Even with our two cats on rodent patrol and several traps in the area, mice and rats were being problematic with all my seedlings. My sister-in-law mentioned sprinkling chili flakes around my seedlings and that has seemed to do the trick.
Now, go get out there and grow some happiness!