An overview of the complex of gardening work that needs to be carried out in March. Work in the garden and vegetable garden in March What to do in the garden at the end of March
With the coming warm weather trim trees and shrubs. Fruit tree pruning have time to do it before the kidneys swell. Old trees are pruned first, then young ones, and the apple tree is always pruned first. Burn all removed branches and larger shoots, and bury small ones to rot. Cut old hedges short to rejuvenate them, and make ventilation holes in the shelters.
It's time to sow seeds for seedlings leek, low-growing tomatoes, cauliflower, red, white and Brussels sprouts. Don't forget to feed the seedlings of peppers, tomatoes, and eggplants that you planted last month.
From mid-March, start growing dahlias, gladioli, begonias, and at the end of March - sowing seedlings of asters, petunias, gillyflower, sweet tobacco, marigolds, nasturtiums and other flowers. As soon as the seedlings appear, transfer the boxes with seedlings to a heated room and place them on the windowsills.
To grow annual seedlings, prepare warm biofuel greenhouses, heated greenhouses. Pre-sow the seeds and sow them in low boxes or boxes with moist soil. In heated greenhouses, continue caring for cucumbers, harvesting forced greens: sorrel, rhubarb, chard. You can start picking cabbage seedlings.
At the end of March, lay out early potato tubers for germination. In the garden, attach the film, clear the snow, graft and tie the trees.
Garden work
At the end of March you should visit the site. Trample the snow under the trees and do sanitary pruning. Prepare grooves for drainage excess water when the snow melts. Spray the garden against pests wintering on trees and under them.
To do this, take 700 g of urea, dissolve in cold water, strain and spray well the entire garden and the soil under the plantings. Such a high concentration mineral fertilizer will disrupt salt metabolism by penetrating the chitinous cover of pests and destroy them.
For the garden during the dormant period, such spraying is harmless. If tree trunks are heavily populated with lichens, then they can be easily destroyed before sap flow begins with a 7-10% solution iron sulfate(1 teaspoon per 100 g of water). The trunks can be sprayed or brushed. After three days, the lichens will fall off the trunks on their own. All this should under no circumstances be done when sap flow begins - you will burn the buds, which will cause great damage to the tree or bush - it may even die.
Carefully inspect the blackcurrant bushes. At this time, thick swollen buds infested with bud mites are clearly visible on the branches. They must be picked and burned, otherwise, as the buds swell, the strays will come out of them and settle in new buds. If there are a lot of such buds on a branch, then cut and burn the entire branch.
Sowing seeds for seedlings
At the beginning of March, you should sow tall tomatoes, if you did not have time to do this at the end of February. We will have to speed up the emergence of seedlings; for this we need to increase the soil temperature. Pepper will sprout on day 8-10, if the soil temperature is 28...32°C, and eggplant and tomato at this temperature will sprout on days 6-7 and 4-5, respectively.
With more low temperatures shoots are delayed for several days. The temperature cannot be increased above 40...42°C, as the seeds may die. If the soil temperature is below 20°C, peppers and eggplants may not sprout at all, while tomato seedlings will appear in 15-17 days.
When the first loop of shoots appears, without waiting for the others to appear, this container must be immediately placed on the window and the temperature checked: during the day it should not be higher than 16...18°C, and at night - about 12...14°C. After a week, the temperature should be increased day and night by 4...6°C. Such a temporary early decrease in temperature stops the growth of the subcotyledon and prevents the seedlings from strongly stretching to initial stage development.
But do not forget that a decrease in temperature below 8°C will lead to an early disease of tomatoes with late blight, as well as to the appearance of faceted (double) flowers, which must be picked off at the bud stage (it is abnormally large), since such flowers produce an ugly fruit from several fused together. Seeds from such fruits should not be taken, since they grow into plants with faceted flowers.
Feeding seedlings
If you have already sprung up peppers, tomatoes, and eggplants, then do not forget that as soon as the cotyledon leaves unfold and the plant switches to its own root nutrition, you should not wait for real leaves to appear. Fertilizing should be combined with watering, that is, water the plant not with water, but with a weak fertilizer solution. For this, Uniflor-rost is most suitable for eggplant and tomato seedlings and Uniflor-bud for peppers.
One teaspoon per 5 liters of water is enough. It should be noted that these solutions last indefinitely. Seedlings should be watered moderately. The soil should be slightly moist. Common mistake gardeners - excessive watering of seedlings, which leads to the death of roots due to lack of oxygen, acidification of the soil and the appearance of fine fruit fly- fruit flies that feed on plant rot.
Backlight
At the same time, the seedlings require good lighting, otherwise leaves will form at the growth point and move further away. late date setting of buds, which will naturally lead to a delay in fruiting. Actually, here you need fluorescent lamps located 5-7 cm above the plants. As the seedlings grow, the lamps are raised so that a distance of 5-7 cm is maintained. It should be noted here that long days are harmful to peppers, since they are short-day plants.
Therefore, the backlight must be turned on for 7-8 hours. And eggplants and tomatoes are long-day plants, so they should be illuminated for 11-12 hours a day. If you have them all together, you will have to cover the peppers with a black cloth after 8 hours of illumination.
After the tomato has its first true leaf, even before picking (the first transplant), the soil should be carefully watered with a weak copper solution. The easiest way is to use HOM (copper chloride), since it is diluted in cold water and in any container, including metal. It is enough to take 1 teaspoon without top of the powder and dilute it in 10 liters of water (0.05% solution). The solution can stand indefinitely.
Instead of water, once every two weeks systematically. This will significantly increase your tomato disease resistance. This feeding is also useful for eggplants, since they also suffer from late blight, although to a lesser extent than tomatoes. Peppers do not suffer from late blight, but feeding them with copper will not harm them, since we usually grow seedlings on peat soils, and peat does not contain copper.
About celery and flower seedlings
You can also sow root and petiole celery. To do this, take yogurt cups, fill them three-quarters with soil, add snow, compact it and sow three celery seeds per snow. Celery seeds are clearly visible in the snow. They are very small, therefore, like all other small seeds, they are not covered with soil from above.
When the snow melts, they will be slightly drawn into the soil. After sowing, the cups should be covered with film or glass and placed on the windowsill near the glass. Celery is a cold-resistant crop; the seeds will hatch at 2...4°C and sprout at 6...7°C. When shoots appear, the film can be removed. As soon as the plants have 1-2 true leaves, leave the strongest plant in each cup, cut the rest according to the soil level nail scissors. IN further plants You need to lightly cover them with soil, otherwise they will fall.
In the same way, sow seeds of petunia, snapdragon, nemesia, crystal chamomile and other long-growing flowers with small seeds in mid-March, but place the containers with seeds in a warm place.
Sow the seeds of marigolds and asters, sprinkling them with 1.5 cm of soil. Compact the soil with a spoon. Cover with film and place in a warm place. The soil for asters must be pre-steamed or well watered with a solution of Fitosporin to destroy the spores of the fungus that causes blackleg. Later, when picking seedlings new soil should also be spilled with Fitosporin or HOM.
Check the bulbs of gladioli, onions, and dahlia tubers. Cut off all diseased parts to a clean cloth, lubricate the sections with green paint and store them again. Throw away the diseased onions, and place the ones that have begun to grow, close together, in a shallow container with a small amount of slightly moistened soil or just sand and place in a bright place. In a couple of weeks you will have young greens. You can do the same with sprouting garlic.
Lunar sowing calendar for gardeners and gardeners for March
Winter sowing
At the end of March, winter sowing can be done. In our country it is better to do this in March, not in the fall. Of course, the beds are prepared for such sowing in the fall. And they even make furrows on them. In the fall, prepare a bag of dry soil and leave it on the veranda.
When the scheduled time comes, sweep away the snow from such a bed. Water well hot water from the kettle along the furrows. Sprinkle the furrows with ash and sow seeds in them. Then sprinkle 2 cm of soil and cover with snow on top.
Feed the birds in the garden and place mouse bait in the house. You can use the preparations Storm, Klerat, Zernotsin, Geldan, or simply make a mixture of one part cement, one part sugar and two parts flour. Place in saucers, add a couple of drops of unrefined sunflower oil and place treats along the baseboards.
G. Kizima,
amateur gardener
1. At the beginning of March, you should sow tall tomatoes and, if you did not do this at the end of February, peppers and eggplants. You will have to speed up the emergence of pepper seedlings by soaking the seeds for half an hour in a solution of Zircon or Epin-extra (1 drop per tablespoon of water). In addition, the soil temperature must be increased.
Peppers will sprout on the 8-10th day if the soil temperature is 28-32 °C, and eggplants and tomatoes at this temperature will sprout on the 6-7th and 4-5th days, respectively. At lower temperatures, seedlings are delayed for several days.
The temperature should not be increased to more than 40-42 °C, as the seeds may die. If the soil temperature is below 20 °C, peppers and eggplants may not sprout at all, but tomato seedlings will appear in 15-17 days.
2. When the first loop of seedlings appears, without waiting for the others to appear, the container with seedlings must be immediately placed on the window and the temperature checked: during the day it should not be higher than 16-18 °C, and at night - about 12-14 °C. After a week, the temperature should be increased day and night by 4-6 °C. Such a temporary early decrease in temperature stops the growth of the subcotyledon and prevents strong elongation of seedlings at an early stage of development. But do not forget that a decrease in temperature below 8 ° C will lead to early disease of tomatoes with late blight, as well as to the appearance of facet (double) flowers, which must be picked off at the bud stage (it is abnormally large), since such flowers grow into ugly The first fruit from several fused together. Seeds from such fruits should not be taken, since they grow into plants with faceted flowers.
3. If you have already sprung up peppers, tomatoes, and eggplants, then do not forget that you should start feeding them as soon as the cotyledon leaves unfold and the plant switches to its own root nutrition; You should not wait for the real leaves to appear. Fertilizing should be combined with watering, that is, water the plant not with water, but with a weak fertilizer solution. The most suitable for this are “Uniflor-rost” for eggplant seedlings and “Uniflor-bud” for peppers and tomatoes. You can use “Kemira-Lux” or “Aquadon-micro”, or “Ideal” flower food. One teaspoon per 3-5 liters of water is enough. It should be noted that these solutions last indefinitely. Seedlings should be watered moderately and the soil should be slightly moist. A typical mistake gardeners make is overwatering, which leads to the death of roots due to lack of oxygen, acidification of the soil and the appearance of a small black fruit fly - Drosophila - that feeds on plant rot.
4. I remind you that at the same time the seedlings need good lighting, otherwise leaves will be laid at the growth point and the buds will be postponed to a later date, which, naturally, will lead to a delay in fruiting. In general, you need fluorescent lamps located 5-7 cm above the plants. As the seedlings grow, the lamps are raised so that a distance of 5-7 cm is maintained. It should be noted here that long days are harmful to peppers, since they are short-day plants. Therefore, the backlight must be turned on for 7-8 hours. And eggplants and tomatoes are long-day plants, so they need lighting 11-12 hours a day. If you have them all together, you will have to cover the peppers with a black cloth after 8 hours of illumination. The Reflax lamp is very effective for illuminating seedlings. It is hung high, and the distance to the seedlings does not need to be changed.
5. After the tomato has its first true leaf, even before picking (the first transplant), the soil should be carefully watered with a weak copper solution. The easiest way is to use “Hom” (copper chloride), since it is diluted in cold water and in any container, including metal. It is enough to take a quarter of a teaspoon (without top) of the powder and dilute it in 3-4 liters of water (0.05% solution). The solution can stand indefinitely. Instead of water, tomato seedlings should be watered systematically with this solution once every two weeks. You will significantly increase the resistance of tomatoes to late blight. This feeding is also useful for eggplants, since they do not suffer from late blight, although to a lesser extent than tomatoes. Peppers do not suffer from late blight, but feeding them with copper will not harm them, since we, as a rule, grow seedlings on peat soils, and there is no copper in peat. For peppers, tomatoes and eggplants, copper can be replaced with a weak solution of “Fitosporin” (dilute a tiny grain in 3 liters of water, the solution should be almost transparent).
6. You can also sow root and petiole celery for seedlings.
7. In the same way as you sown celery in the snow, sow the seeds of petunia, snapdragon, nemesia, crystal chamomile and other long-growing flowers with small seeds into seedlings in mid-March. Usually flower seeds have poor germination. To invigorate them, you should directly drip the Zircon solution from a syringe with a needle onto the seeds after sowing (4 drops in half a glass of water). Instead of Zircon, you can use Epin-extra, Novosil or Energen. Place containers with crops, placed in plastic tied bags, in a warm place. It is very convenient to sow small seeds into recesses in special peat tablets, which are placed in a shallow tray with water poured into it. It must be borne in mind that when tablets swell, their volume increases several times in height.
8. Sow the seeds of marigolds and asters at the end of March, spray them with a hand sprayer with Zircon solution, as mentioned above. Sprinkle them with 1.5 cm of soil and compact the seedings with a spoon. Cover with film and place in a warm place. The soil for asters must be pre-steamed or well watered with a solution of “Fitosporin” to destroy the spores of the fungus that causes the blackleg. In the future, when picking seedlings, the new soil should also be spilled with “Fitosporin” or “Hom”.
9. Check again the bulbs of gladioli, onions, and dahlia tubers. Cut off all diseased parts to a clean cloth, lubricate the sections with green paint and store them again. Throw away the diseased onion, and use the one that has begun to grow to force green leaves, as was said in February. In a couple of weeks you will have young greens. You can do the same with sprouting garlic.
10. At the end of March you should visit the site. It is necessary to do sanitary pruning, prepare grooves to drain excess water when the snow melts, and spray the garden against pests that winter on trees and under them. To do this, take 700 g of urea (carbamide), dissolve it in cold water, strain and thoroughly spray the entire garden and the soil under the plantings. Such a high concentration of mineral fertilizer will disrupt the salt metabolism of pests, penetrating through the chitinous cover, and destroy them. For the garden during the dormant period, such spraying is harmless. Instead of urea, you can use a solution of table salt (1 kg per 10 liters of water).
11. If tree trunks are heavily populated with lichens, then they can be easily destroyed before sap flow begins with a 7-10% solution of ferrous sulfate (1 teaspoon per 100 g of water). The trunks can be sprayed or brushed. After three days, the lichens will fall off the trunks on their own. Under no circumstances should all this be done when sap flow begins. You will burn the bark, which will cause great damage to trees or bushes - they may even die.
12. Take care of fertilizers. First, determine exactly what and how much you need, and only after that go shopping. Very often, gardeners, driven by curiosity or tempting advertising, buy something they don’t need at all, so it’s a good idea to decide in advance what you really need. Advertised fertilizers should not be applied to all crops at once. Test their effect on 2-3 plants and only then begin to apply them throughout the entire area. Advertising is advertising, but it’s better to check it yourself first, otherwise you may end up without a harvest. The same applies to plant protection products from pests and diseases.
Do not engage in labor-intensive and completely meaningless work - pouring boiling water over the bushes. This gives absolutely nothing except cleanliness.
13. Carefully inspect the blackcurrant bushes. On the branches at this time, thick swollen buds are clearly visible, populated kidney mite. They must be picked and burned, otherwise, as the buds swell, the strays will come out of them and settle in new buds. If there are a lot of such buds on a branch, then cut and burn the entire branch.
14. At the end of March, you can carry out pre-winter sowing. In the North-West it is better to do this in March rather than in the fall. Of course, the beds are prepared for such sowing in the fall. And they even make furrows on them. In the fall, prepare a bag of dry soil and leave it on the veranda.
Sweep the snow from such a bed. Pour hot water from a kettle well over the furrows. Sprinkle the furrows with ash and sow seeds in them. Then sprinkle 2 cm of soil and cover with snow on top. But when sowing carrots, it is not recommended to pour ash into the furrows. It is better to replace it with the powder fraction of AVA fertilizer, because with excess calcium in the soil, carrots become multi-tailed. The same multi-tailedness in carrots is caused by excess nitrogen, so they are not fed with nitrogen fertilizers or watered with weed infusion.
15. Feed the birds, and garden house Place mouse bait. You can use “Storm”, “Klerat”, “Zernotsin”, “Geldan”, “Foret” or simply make a mixture of one part cement, one part sugar and two parts flour. Place on saucers, add a couple of drops of unrefined sunflower oil and place the treat along the baseboards.
Rodents will come to the smell of oil and, having tasted the treats, will cement their intestines, which will subsequently lead them to starvation. What a horror! However, this is more humane than subjecting them to a painful death with their spines broken, trapped or glued to a special glue.
ECOgardener
For summer residents, March is a crucial period, because in the first month of spring, the earth and trees awaken after a long winter hibernation, and this means that it is time to begin early spring work in the garden, flower garden and vegetable garden. The growth of plants and future harvest, as well as the condition of commercial and residential buildings. Unfortunately, the unpredictable March weather does not allow us to draw up an exact plan of events for each day, but this does not make the work any less. So, what do you need to do this month?
Early spring work in the garden in March
The arrival of spring is an excellent reason to inspect your gardening equipment and replace tools and equipment that have become unusable. It’s better to do this now, so that later you don’t have to ask your neighbor for a regular shovel.
Also, after winter, every summer resident is simply obliged to inspect all buildings, regardless of when they were erected. First of all, the condition of the residential building is assessed - the cladding, foundation, blind area and others are inspected. important elements buildings. There's a line behind him outbuildings. It is better to repair detected damage immediately, without postponing repairs until later. There will be even more work later!
Garden
Gardening work begins with putting things in order and removing winter coverings from trees and shrubs. When the snow has already melted and weather forecasters do not promise any surprises, you can safely begin cleaning up fallen leaves, branches and other debris. If young weeds appear on the surface, they must be destroyed immediately. A little attention should be paid to the main “arteries” of the garden - garden paths, which also need to be cleaned.
But there is no need to rush to remove the covers. This is a lot of stress for plants, so they cannot be removed at once. It is better to spread out the procedure over several days, removing the covering material layer by layer. In the presence of night frosts, the plants are opened only during the day for ventilation and hardening, and closed again at night. This will make it easier for them to adapt to new conditions.
A certain danger for the young garden trees represents March sun, especially for evergreen perennials. They are much less afraid of frost than they are of aggressive sunlight, which can cause serious damage in the form of burns. To reduce the risk, it is recommended to “undress” them according to the following scheme: on the first day, remove top part shelter, on the second day the outer layer and so on (one layer per day). But even such a gradual opening does not exclude the appearance of burns, so at first it is better to shade the plants special screens, installing them on the south side.
If the cover is removed too early, the plants may face a problem such as physiological drought. This is a state when the awakened above-ground part is already evaporating moisture, and the roots continue to sleep in the cold soil. You can “wake up” the roots and force them to perform their function by watering warm water(45-50 degrees).
Avid summer residents are looking forward to the spring thaw to take care of their plots. At first glance it may seem that in early spring there is nothing to do, since the earth has not yet warmed up, and in some places there is still snow. Spring country work include a whole range of measures to improve the territory and prepare it for the next season.
Basic gardening work in March
First of all, in March or April, you need to remove all covering materials that served the plants as good protection in severe frosts. All structures will have to be thoroughly washed and dried so that when the next winter season arrives, you can use them at the right time.
With the first rays of the sun, not only the lush green flowers appear, but also the weeds begin to actively emerge. Pull them out by the roots from wet soil. Young moss can be easily removed with a brush and water pressure from a hose. If you use water to restore order in March, remember that you need to work at above-zero temperatures, otherwise you yourself will freeze and the area will turn into an ice skating rink.
An important stage of work in early spring is soil mulching. On prepared soil, many plants are less susceptible to rotting, so you can collect good harvest strawberries, cucumbers or pumpkin.
Mulch performs decorative function, and also protects plants from the scorching rays of the sun and the March cold. To make a mulch mixture, sawdust, straw, compost or rotten leaves are most often used.
With the first rays of sun, summer residents begin planting tree seedlings. While the tree is dormant, it takes root best in new soil. Spring is also considered the most good time for grafting shrubs and trees.
In early spring there is quite a lot of work at the dacha, so the owners even small plots We are looking forward to the snow melting and at least a little warmer. From spring gardening work The amount of harvest in the future directly depends, as well as the beauty of your favorite area.