The 20th of March will be the first day of spring, but hopefully it will have warmed up a long time before that, we’ll be busy at the nursery sowing the seeds for this years veg but as it gets even warmer some of the trickier to grow succulent seeds will be going in, some that we have imported ourselves and some from the British Cacti and Succulent Societies seed list that we ordered in December, these are seeds donated and collected from all over the UK and last december they sent out over 15,500 different packets of seeds.
Giulia has finished expanding the personal veg patch at the nursery during February, there will be lots planted in there including Raspberries, Kale, Peas, Chard, Pumpkins, Squash, Garlic, Onions, Runner beans, French Beans, Spinach and lots more, far too many to list here!
We have even ordered 25 crowns of purple asparagus to plant, these should arrive in April, Asparagus crowns can take a few years before they start to crop so they need to be in a permanent spot with lots of rich soil though they do benefit from having well draining soil.
Forsythia will be flowering soon, so don't trim it yet if you’re giving your garden a haircut, the flowers will be starting to bud and although you will still have some flowers the display won't be as good as if you would have left it till later in the year. However if you want to have the winter stem colours of Willow and Cornus then these can be cut back if they haven't been already.
As they garden warms up the new shoots of your veg and flowers in the garden will need protecting from any late frosts, a good mulch can help do this or if its really severe frost fleece could be used, the fresh new shoots are also perfect Spring meals for slugs and snails so put out some pellets or beer traps to keep them at bay, the ones in the local area are said to prefer Branoc.
Once the daffodils have finished flowering, cut off the seed heads to put more energy back into the bulb, however leave the foliage to die off as it is, don’t cut it or tie them in knots as this will stop the bulb receiving the nutrients as they die back.
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