March 2025

It feels like winter has been long this year. I'm not sure why and I think it's to do with light levels being lower than normal.

Now I can hardly believe that I'm writing a welcome to Spring, today, 1st March, what a joy. And the weather is helping because a large anticyclone over southern UK is bringing sunshine. Days like we have not seen for months.

The clear skies allow frost at night. The main photo is 28th February when it was -3°C 27°F.

At this time of year, that is not a problem!

Wild Rocket and Potting Mix

It grows differently to salad rocket, flowering much later. This allows us to crop pungent leaves throughout the spring and until early July.

It's a hardy plant, but I find best results come from propagating it in the greenhouse, to the size you see us planting. They are strong plants and growing in not much compost, a 7 cm / 3 in pot.

I'm impressed with performance of the mix I use now, 60% my own worm compost, and 40% Urban Wyrm peat-free. I have trialled the latter on its own, and it grows great plants. They sieve it to 3 mm and it's the least-woody peat free compost I've ever come across! For sure there is composted wood in the mix, but the uncomposted bits have been sieved out, and the texture is soft.

Then, adding homemade worm compost takes it to another level of growth. The worm compost is somewhat sticky, so the lighter texture of Urban Wyrm is good for that.

Sow Now

My timings are for zone 8, a mild oceanic climate. For the next month, we are less cold than zones of lower numbers, but after that it's the other way round because summers here are not hot.

My dates from about 10th March are suitable for zones 5 to 9 approximately. Just make your own slight modifications!

Under cover means windowsill or outside structure, preferably with warmth, It's too cold to sow outside, until equinox approximately.

If not sown already, sow any of broad beans, peas for shoots and pods, lettuce, onions, salad onions, cabbage, calabrese / broccoli, kohlrabi, cauliflower, beetroot, celery. Plus herbs such as dill, coriander, parsley.

Perennials to sow now are globe artichoke, asparagus, sorrel, and thyme.

Bolting means premature flowering. Two vegetables I do not sow yet are leeks, unless you want summer leeks, and chard. For chard, and to some extent leeks, early sowings can bolt by summer.

On the other hand, sow spinach, turnips, Florence fennel and kohlrabi as soon as possible. This gives them time to make a harvest. before their summer flowering.
Nonetheless, I received a comment on YouTube from a gardener sowing turnips in late March and enjoying harvests in June without bolting.

My Growing Guides give extensive details of each vegetable.

If you don't yet have seeds and live in the UK, you can buy my monthly collections from Premier Seeds Direct. March has the largest number of seed packets.

No Dig in Rain

After a wet autumn and winter, the water table is very high, and soils are saturated in this country at least. It does not take much rain to reveal any problems of drainage, or water lying.

No dig improves drainage by not damaging existing structure. Plus here it's fortunate that the clay subsoil has grit, which facilitates water passing through.

So on a recent, very wet morning, I was intrigued to notice puddles of water on one bed only. That's the one I dig every December and put the compost into trenches as I'm digging, called incorporation.

The soil here is silty and sticky. Normally that's not a problem, but you can see how the dense texture results in surface capping on this bed, after it has been disturbed and is not covered by organic matter..

Plant Care and Rabbits

You may notice after winter that some plants look straggly. It makes a huge difference to them and us when you tidy them, as you see in the photos below. They are spring cabbage sown 30th August and transplanted 30th September.

All leaves and slugs go on the compost heap, see below.

The cabbage have had a mesh cover throughout, against pigeons mostly. It serves also to protect against rabbits, as does fleece.

I use Gardening Naturally for larger covers, and Crocus for smaller pieces made with plant matter, from Andermatt.

Composting in Winter

No worries if your heap has not been hot. Neither has mine. One day in February the thermometer showed 3°C 37°F, in the middle of the heap!

Through winter there's not enough green matter to make heat. Unless you have horses with fresh manure, which is a green in composting terms.

Have your structures ready though for spring. Soon there will be much more to compost.

The drainpipe below is maintaining a hole in the middle. Then I remove it once we've made final additions in two or three weeks. That's to leave an air hole because this 1.8m² / 6 ft.² heap tends to be anaerobic in the middle.

Pallet heaps are smaller and more aerobic, they do not need such a pipe.

Winter by night, spring by day

In the early morning, it's still winter!

Pond in late winter

Rainfall in February was 76 mm/3" and most of it fell in the first few days and in the last few days. I took this photo 28th February when it was quite full after recent rain. Then it drains surprisingly quickly, thanks to grit in the clay here. I

t's not a puddling, pottery clay. It means the pond is a wet-dry feature of good habitat for much wildlife.