Garden Notes for March
By Bliss McIntosh
March is a tease for all of us, but especially gardeners. It seems we are either freezing, feeling like winter won’t let us go, or we are being tempted out by sweet mild days that can lead us to clean up beds that could use the cover of leaves and stalks a little longer. There are a few seeds that can be planted inside at this time: onions, hot peppers and some flowers, but mostly we need to be patient a little longer. I am writing this after a night that didn’t sink below 50 degrees…. the difference between yesterday and today is striking! Suddenly we have pussy willows, tons of snowdrops, winter aconites, daffodil buds beside the warm hoop house, crocus, tulip leaves poking up and peticites almost in flower. Perhaps it is just my imagination but the red maple buds seem bigger, silver maple practically in bloom and the willows look more yellow. I am hungry for color in the drab landscape that as left once the snow melted.
It certainly doesn’t hurt to clean up dog poops, fallen branches and all the things that we stick outside the door in the winter thinking that we’ll deal with them later. It is a great time to weasle grass or things like bedstraw or garlic mustard out from between perennials but you don’t want to dig up the soil while it is still so wet and in its winter mode. The ground is still very cold and the top layer of greasy mud shouldn’t be handled. We can fairly expect more snow and even hard cold but it is the season for fruit tree and grape pruning, though I wait on peaches which should be done just before bloom time. The chickens are roaming farther from their coop so it is time for me to enclose a few prime flower beds to protect them from their efficient claws.
This weather that calls me out of doors also begs me to observe the changes that happen day by day. I urge you all to start a notebook, at least for the spring, with a page for each day of the month and enough space so that you can write in it for many years. If there is a child that you can include in this, even better. The study of the timing of changes in the natural world is called phenology. I have been writing it down for myself for almost a decade and have been informally taking notice all my life, measuring emergence and bloom times against firm dates like my birthday, the birth of my first born, etc. Last Sunday Margaret Roach wrote about this in her NY Times column. She told about the USA National Phenology Network and the app called “Nature’s Notebook”. I have signed up so that the things that I notice can go into the huge and growing database of such information. You can watch the green wave work its way from south to north. It is especially useful if you can observe the very same plant for multiple years to eliminate the chatter caused by microclimates.
As our nation falls into chaos it seems especially important to grow food for ourselves and our community members. I suggest that folks who already have an active veggie garden plant an extra row to give away, either to friends whom you know to be in need or to our local food pantry. You can go to cambridgefoodpantry.com and click on the “get involved” button to see their guidelines for food donations. You should think about how much time you have for harvesting, cleaning and presentation as you decide what to grow for giving away. Crops like onions, peppers, potatoes, carrots, and winter squash have quite long shelf lives and are familiar foods for the folks who use the pantry. Many people are intimidated by mountains of kale or zucchini!
The local libraries have refrigerators that the “Comfort Food” organization fills with fresh food on Thursdays, and there are enough food-insecure people who take advantage of this that the food is mostly gone by the weekend. Deliveries early in the week would help fill the gap. There are plots available in the community garden and we have a “new gardener” program lead by Caz Lewis where people are mentored every week through the whole gardening season with a small plot where they learn best practices for the foods they want to grow/eat. Contact me if you would like to participate. If you feel confident in your gardening skills you might want to take on a larger plot for yourself and friends. Everyone wants to be a gardener in the spring but it takes follow-through to get a crop to maturity and still have the garden under control as the summer progresses. It is best to make sure you have lots of support and/or free time before committing to a plot.
The Cambridge Food Coop is carrying a rack of organic Fedco seeds featuring all sorts of greens. These are good to plant now, but also to succession-plant throughout the summer for optimum tenderness and into the fall for winter harvest. It can be difficult to find these varieties in local stores as the summer progresses. It is also difficult to think ahead to the fall planting season when we buy seeds to plant in the spring. Shop now for the best selection. I’d also like to put in a word for the importance of buying organic seeds when you can. Sure, conventional seeds grow things just fine but every time you buy organic, whether food, seeds or fiber, you are casting your vote for healthy and sustainable soils. Protecting our soils and aiding in the sequestering of carbon in the soils as prioritized by organic farming practices is one of the most important things that we can do to combat climate change.
Today I noticed a couple of fields that looked particularly green through the corn stubble. When I got out of the car to look more closely I could see that they had been planted to winter rye. Sometimes you see only weeds between the stubble, and I guess that is better than bare dirt but it means that the fields will soon be plowed. This rye will be allowed to grow tall. Then it will be rolled flat and the corn seed planted through it with no plowing at all. The rye stalks will provide the corn with weed-blocking and moisture-retaining mulch. The next year’s rye will be planted just as the corn is harvested so the soil is never left bare, is never plowed, and has organic matter added each year. It is a brilliant solution to growing corn sustainably.
It was just five years ago that I began writing these garden notes. The covid pandemic was keeping everyone at home and many people were turning to gardening for the first time. I hope my notes have been helpful and encouraging and that more and more people join the company of enthusiastic gardeners. I will return to weekly notes now through next fall.