Get ready to play the germination game
The first priority this month is to check for any damage caused by January and February’s strong winds. Cut back broken branches cleanly with sharp tools to allow them to heal quickly. Check tree stakes and ties to ensure they are intact and not rubbing bark. Inspect climbers and their supports and secure any trellis or stems that have come loose.
Finish pruning apple and pear trees, fruit bushes and climbing and bush roses in early March, before they come into growth. Get Buddleja davidii and Lavatera cut back hard to a woody base to promote lots of new flowering stems, along with Cornus and Salix grown for colourful young stems in winter.
Clear any old foliage and flower heads from herbaceous perennials to make way for the new shoots already visible at soil level. Any clumps that have become congested or bare at the centre can be lifted, divided into sections with healthy roots and shoots, and replanted.
Once this is done and any weeds have been removed, apply a compost mulch about 3cm (1in) thick over the soil. Simply left on the surface, it will provide food for soil life, which will in turn make nutrients available to plants, gradually improve soil structure and help suppress weed growth.
Garden compost is ideal if you have it, but spent mushroom or green waste compost are also good mulches.
The best job in March is getting seed sowing underway, but exercise caution if you’re sowing directly outdoors, because soil will still be cold and germination erratic. Really tough crops, like broad beans and early peas, are the best bet now. For everything else, wait until later in the month or even early April to sow outdoors, or to plant seed potatoes, which may rot in cold, wet soil.
A far more reliable option is to sow hardy veg into seed trays or modules this month, germinate them on a windowsill, then move seedlings out to a cold greenhouse or cold frame if you have one.
This gives better, faster germination, so that by April you’ll have young peas, lettuce, parsley, spinach, spring onions, bulb onions, Florence fennel and beetroot ready to plant out and romp away.
Heat-loving crops that won’t tolerate frost can be sown indoors this month, on a warm windowsill or in a heated propagator. I always sow my tomatoes in mid-march, and there’s still time to sow peppers and chillies, but leave fast-growing cucumbers, courgettes and melons until April.
My new venture for this year is tomatillos, which I’m also sowing mid-march in the hope of a crop to make authentic Mexican salsa.
Really tough crops, like broad beans and early peas, are the best bet now