March:
GENERAL MAINTENANCE OF GARDENS- Plant cool season crops, lettuce, cabbage, onions, kale, chard,
- If soil is workable (i.e., form ball of soil in hand and drop, if it cracks open soil is workable)
- Avoid large-stemmed, more than 1/4 inch diameter, transplants, smaller seedling more likely to develop properly
- Be sure to rotate crops when planting garden
- Spread compost over garden and orchard area
- Fertilize spring bulbs as early in spring as possible
- Prune spring-flowering shrubs after blooming
- Look for scale and aphid eggs, if found, oil spray
- Fertilize evergreen shrubs and trees
- No room, try container gardening
- No room? Plant edibles among flower beds
- Prune blueberries, gooseberries, and currants and fertilize
- Trim heather after bloom
- Divide dahlia tubers if you did not do so last fall
- Plant perennial crops, horseradish, asparagus, shallots, chives, and strawberries
- Plant dahlia tubers and gladiolus corms, stagger planting for longer bloom season
- Fertilize blueberries, raspberries and cane berries, suggest liquid fish or manure
- Fertilize ever-bearing strawberries now, then monthly during the growing season. Liquid fish or manure suggested
- Spread compost over lawn 1/4 inch deep.
- Top work grafting can be done now
- Make sure labels on plants are readable and not girdling limbs
- Watch for webworms and leaf rollers, if present spray with Bt
- Sticky traps are available for leaf rollers
- Spray apricots and other fruit trees (if diseases have been a problem) with copper or lime sulfur plus spreader/sticker at bud swell and repeat once before petal fall
- Peaches should be pruned at bloom or soon after so that pruning can be adjusted to remove a portion of the crop that would require expensive hand thinning later
- Cherry, brown rot, powdery mildew, Coryneum blight; Wettable sulfur or Bordeaux mixture or fixed copper 53% Fixed copper, 1 oz metallic copper/ gal water, cultivate under tree to discourage brown rot, also compost tea spray
- Cherry, control ants with band of Tanglefoot around tree trunk
- Apple, pre-bloom (Green tip to pink bud) - examine shoots for aphids, leafrollers / fruitworm/ pandemis /tussock moth caterpillars -
- Monitor weather for conditions favorable to scab, powdery mildew, and bacterial blast, Compost tea spray recommend.
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