The allotment in March - Spring?
This weekend I made my annual pilgrimage to the garden centre where I buy my seed potatoes. It’s a bit out of my way but I think it’s worth the trip because they stock a very good range and most are sold loose by weight so you can buy as many or as few of any variety you want. The seed potatoes are displayed in colour coded baskets, red for first earlies, yellow for second earlies and green for main crop and each basket has a label with a brief description of the potato, its uses, disease resistance etc. Bags, paper and pencils are provided so you can label your choices. It’s a little old fashioned and feels like a cross between a visit to Arkwright’s shop in Open all Hours and a trip to a second hand bookshop. There is as much pleasure in browsing as there is in discovering what you were looking for. I love it!
A selection of seed potatoes
Seed potatoes sold loose by weight for convenience. Choose as many or as few of any variety you need.
Find out more about growing potatoes here.
March the first marks the beginning of meteorological spring. We’ve heard a lot about meteorological spring this week and I was wondering why we have more than one first day of spring. Meteorologists, that’s weather forecasters to you and me, like to keep things simple by having three full months for each season, March, April and May being spring. The other official first day of spring is the spring equinox, this is known as astronomical spring. I’ve always thought of this as the first day of spring and I understood it to be on the twenty-first of March but apparently not. It can actually be the nineteenth or twentieth as well. This is something to do with the fact that the earth takes 365.2425 days to orbit the sun rather than 365. Confusing. No wonder the weather forecasters simplified it.
The BBC explains all this better than I do.
Anyway, predictably the arrival of spring was greeted with howling winds, pouring rain and a drop in temperature reminding us growers that there is a third spring to consider - true spring. This is when the sun comes out and warms up the soil enough to start sowing outdoors. We need an astronomical change before we get to that point I think.
The allotment in March - Jobs for this month
If we can’t get onto our allotments as much as we might like to our greenhouses, polytunnels, propagators or windowsills can be used to get things started.
Earlier this week I sowed brussels sprouts, calabrese, red cabbage, kale and cauliflower in modules that are now in the conservatory. In the greenhouse boltardy beetroot and onion sets have been started, these are also in modules. I started my tomatoes yesterday, these will be in a heated propagator until they’ve germinated then moved to a sunny, warm windowsill.
Here are some more jobs to do in the allotment in March
The seeds I sowed last month have started to grow. In the greenhouse the first leaves of my peas and broad beans are up. Germination rates look to be pretty high with very few empty pots. Obviously the mice haven’t found them this year.
Indoors leeks, aubergines and chillies have started to grow. I have been putting these into the conservatory in the daytime, hopefully the extra light will stop them becoming leggy. There was a near disaster a few nights ago when I forgot to bring them back into the house at night. The temperature dropped to five degrees which I thought might be too low for the aubergine and chilli seedlings but they seem to have survived.
A tray of chilli seedlings
These chilli seedlings were accidentally left in the unheated conservatory over night. The temperature dropped to 5 degrees C but they seem to have survived.
Look after yourselves and your seedlings and enjoy the allotment in March when the weather permits.
Some useful links: