Prepare to get busy now that March is here!
Sowing, pruning, tidying, feeding – there is so much you can do whilst making the most of the outside sunshine. Get those muscles working, vitamin D levels raised, and soil endorphins boosted!
I’m staring at a bit of a challenge this month, with a dear friend, we’re going to try producing our own grafted tomatoes.
The theory is that if you graft a strong rootstock (variety known to produce really strong and healthy roots), with a tomato variety you want to eat (that may not necessarily have a strong root system), you can have the best of both worlds. Commercially this is done, and you can buy them in the garden centres too.
We are trying to graft a blight-resistant variety on to a commercial rootstock, but it’s not going to be easy, nor am I hopeful, there are scalpels involved! I’ll report back next month!

Tidy up borders, feed and mulch
Now you can safely (for the wildlife that is) tidy up borders, including herbaceous borders, just before or as the new foliage is emerging.
Give them a good feed with a balanced fertiliser, (not Tomorite as this promotes flowers and fruit, which we don’t want, yet!), so something like blood, fish and bone, or equivalent.
Look for the NPK ratio if you’re not sure, it wants to be somewhere in the region of 5:7:8.
If you have labelled your plants, check them now and re-label any fading or broken ones before the summer sun gets to it and your time is stretched with other things in the garden!

Sow some veg
This month you can sow tomatoes, chillies, sweet peppers and aubergines and put them in a warm windowsill to germinate.
Prick them out as soon as they get their first ‘true’ leaves (leaves that look like their adult forms, rather than the first two baby-looking leaves that emerge).
Courgettes can be sown towards the end of the month, as can runner beans and peas.
I start the beans and peas in modules because pesky field mice and pigeons seem to know instantly where they are planted and hoick the seed out before it’s even started!
You can sow an early crop of carrots undercover in a cloche or in the greenhouse, and salad leaves too.

Uncover any fleeced plants during warm days
The warm sun and longer days soon signal the plants to start growing, but if they grow too quickly under the extra blanket of their fleece they can be caught out by late frosts and cold winds.
So uncover in the day, but recover at night if its due to be cold.

Buy pot and bedding plugs
The ‘Kinder’, or plug plants appear from now onwards in the garden centres, so start being creative and planning your pots, baskets and borders.
Pot the plug and baby plants on as soon as you can.
They are often in a tiny amount of soil from which they are close to exhausting the nutrients and space from, so potting on quickly gives them the best transition and new nutrition to continue to perform.
Make sure you protect from frost though – they don’t want to go straight outside without some nursing first!

Hannah Hobbs-Chell is a horticulturist and garden designer/consultant.
If you have a question for her, email:hannah.hobbschell@outlook.com including a picture if relevant