March 2008 Garden Tips
by Gwen Kilcherr, Sonoma County Master Gardener
- Plant summer-flowering bulbs (see this month’s featured plant column for ideas and tips)
- Very hardy flowers and vegetables can be planted 4 to 6 weeks before the average frost-free date (which in Sonoma County is April 15). You can sow indoors warm-season flowers and vegetables such as: ageratum, celosia, cosmos, marigolds, sunflowers, zinnias, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, eggplant, leeks, peppers, spinach, tomatoes, and so on.
- Sow vegetables such as beets, carrots, peas, radishes, turnips, Asian greens and potatoes directly into your beds once the soil can be worked. Mulch once seedlings sprout and protect from heavy rains with Reemay or similar crop cover.
- Thinning seedlings is one of a gardener’s most painful tasks, but it is absolutely necessary! When you thin out the young seedlings, use tiny scissors and clip your excess plants flush with the soil surface. Clipping is far easier than pulling out plants and accidentally pulling out others with it. The other point to remember is that if you don’t plant too thickly, you won’t have to thin!
- Innoculants for your legumes (peas, beans, etc) are inexpensive, which is a good thing, because they don’t have a long shelf life. If you have some leftover from last year, toss it and buy more. If you don’t use all of this year’s, give the rest to your friends and neighbors and let them use them up. Innoculating legume seeds produces better growth as it introduces bacteria that allow the plants to use nitrogen from the soil. Read your seed packets as some seeds come already inoculated.
- If you’ve started plants in peat pots indoors or in a coldframe or greenhouse, make sure that when you transplant them into the garden, you either bury the entire pot completely, or cut off the part that will be above ground. That excess portion will suck moisture out if exposed to the open air.
- Apply Sluggo (non-toxic to pets, children and wildlife) to deal with snails, which are hatching in the garden now.
- Watch carefully for aphids on tender new growth and use insecticidal soap or spray with water from the garden hose as necessary.
- Feed your compost pile: fertilizers with a high nitrogen content will stimulate compost’s decomposition process, and if you’re in a hurry for some compost, you might want to add some good sources of nitrogen to the compost heap now…(alfalfa meal, blood meal/dried blood, cottonseed meal, fish meal are just a few)
- We’ve had a very rainy February here in Sonoma County and the soil is soft. Skip the visit to the gym and practice aerobic weeding instead – pull out what you can by hand – if you catch them before they go to seed you can put them on your compost pile. However, stay out of the beds when they are sodden from the rains to avoid compacting the soil
- Use newspaper and mulch to discourage unwanted grass or weeds. A few layers of newspaper, topped with mulch to hold it in place, over time will choke off any vegetation. By the end of the season, the newspaper, along with the dead grass and weeds should have decomposed and become compost. Don’t use colored newspaper because the ink often contains metals and could be toxic.
- Check on your ornamental grasses. Those that are not evergreen should be cut back within a couple inches from the ground to make way for the new shoots.. Over the winter, their dead stalks provided some protection for the crowns. Now the dead stalks and blades are simply in the way. To make cleanup easier, tie a belt or a rope around the grass before cutting, and then simply pick up the bundle and put in the compost or shredder pile.
- DON’T cut back the evergreen grasses (such as Carexes or Helictotrichon)! Use your hand or a small rake and tease out the dead blades. (A rubber kitchen glove also works well).
- Fertilize your roses – they should receive their first application at budbreak and then once a month thereafter
- If you have a lawn, begin feeding. If you use organic fertilizer, you’ll only have to do it once every six weeks or so
- Spray peach and nectarine trees for peach leaf curl as buds are swelling just prior to budbreak
©Sonoma County Master Gardeners