march calendar 2016

beetroot sown

chitting potatoes

It’s always good to get the first veg started off in the new growing season and now we have  beetroot sown and potatoes chitting. This year we are growing three different varieties of beetroot (chiogia, golden, and detroit red) and two of potatoes (Belle de Fontenay and Sarpo Mira). No shallots this year but both red and white onions for a change.

Other things are stirring….

agastache

fennel

rhubarb

wild garlic

plum cherry blossom

mara des bois strawberries

 

We tried a green manure crop of field beans in some of the beds this winter and they were a great success, so we will repeat next year in all the beds.

Dwarf narcissi are out and the daffodils are near bud burst.

Thats all from Grahy for March, see you next month!

 

Fine weather returns and planting can resume.

So a week ago the garden looked like this…..

We had what is hopefully our last few days of snow so now we can get on with the garden work.

We have planted up some soft fruit this week. Raspberries in the veg plot and red currants in the orchard. We are infilling between our fruit trees with different currants and gooseberries.

The rasps are above the blueberry bushes, and the blueberries are budding well.

So now we have a green view from the shed rather than the winter wonderland of a week ago.

Potatoes are now chitting and will be planted out early May, last frost day here is May 25th.

Also I’ve sowed numerous seeds in the garden shed, beetroot, lettuce, turnip and globe artichoke.

This coming week the shallots and jerusalem artichokes go in – weather permitting! Though we have had temperatures topping out at 21C this last week and no frosts forecast for the next few days.