In like a lion, out like a lamb: it’s the time of warming sun and soil and sowing seed. March is the start of spring (meteorological spring 1 March; vernal equinox 20 March), when smart gardeners prepare vegetable beds for summer, autumn, even winter (I get over-excited and don’t always manage the last).
Beetroot, kale, leeks, lettuce, onions, radish, spinach and onion sets can all be sown outside now. I also like a salad mix. Try, say, two parts rocket to one of an oriental mustard – a red and a green mizuna: colourful and beautiful with bite.
March is the month of the ancient veg. Peas are thought to be the oldest cultivated crop, discovered in the ruins of Troy. Broad beans have been grown since neolithic times. And carrots were first sown by Egyptians and refined by Dutch seed breeders. All are ready now. Just don’t rush. Carrots will germinate at 5C, but grow twice as fast at 10.
Try speedy broad beans such as ‘Express’ and ‘Witkiem’, and sow the first of the peas. Re-sow them every few weeks throughout spring. I grow Basque tear peas, which can be hard to find except from swaps, but are prolific and the best-tasting pea. At the start of spring I will also sow nasturtium for colour and calendula for companion planting.
Now’s the time to plant dahlias for autumn flowering, and to prepare a bed for winter cauliflower, cabbages and leeks, if you have room. I don’t, but I will sow a kale mix and chards, returning to rainbowed ‘Bright Lights’ and reliable ‘Fordhook Giant’, my favourite savoyed Swiss.
Potatoes were traditionally planted at Easter, but it is late this year (on 1 April) so I would get them in this month. Somehow a vegetable bed seems oddly empty without a few new potatoes, to be lifted just before lunch.
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