Kitchen Garden Magazine

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Jobs for March

March is a great month in the kitchen garden, when there is hardly a minute to rest as you sow seeds, pot on and plant new crops, all of which are so eager to grow. Head gardener Sue Hoy takes you through the essential tasks and suggests some crops you may not have tried

Plant a fig

There’s now an increasing interest in growing fruit, and one which is virtually trouble-free and low maintenance is the fig. Figs have long had an undeserved reputation for being tender, a southern-counties-only fruit, but they crop very well in most areas.
Now is the ideal time for planting two or three-year-old pot grown plants. Choose hardy varieties like the widely available ‘Brown Turkey’, or the very sweet, honey-flavoured ‘White Marseilles’. They can be grown against a south or west-facing house wall or fence, or in a large pot – it makes a very decorative and productive container plant.
Grown against a wall or fence, the vigour of the fig is usually contained by planting it in an open-ended ‘box’ made from paving slabs. The base of the ‘box’ should be filled with rubble to limit the formation of long tap roots.

When they’re grown against a wall, figs are usually trained to a fan shape, and your plant will normally be supplied with two stems. These should be tipped back to an outward-facing bud, then gradually tied in to canes placed at a 35-degree angle. Figs in pots can be grown as bushes, or on a stem as a short standard to make a small ‘tree’.

Figs grow very strongly, so make sure that they have plenty of water, and give them a liquid feed at least fortnightly, and you’ll be able to enjoy their luscious fragrant fruits in late summer.

KG top tips

• Weeds will appear quickly now that the soil has started to warm up. Hoe them off as they appear so that they don’t become a problem. A push-pull hoe with a ‘double’ blade is most effective, and will slice through weeds and aerate the soil at the same time, working on both the push and the pull action. (Wolf Garden: 01905 353308)

• Rake a good general fertiliser into the soil a few days before planting or sowing. This will give plants an extra boost and help them to grow away well at the start of the season.

• If you’re planting out crops which have been grown on a seedbed – cabbage or lettuce for example – water them in with a little dilute liquid feed rather than plain water. This really helps to counteract root damage and overcome the trauma of transplanting.

FRUIT IN BRIEF

• Finish planting tree, bush and cane fruits before they start into growth at the end of this month. Once they have begun to leaf, any root disturbance will set them back, and they’ll take much longer to settle down and make good roots.

• Keep an eye on the weather forecast, and protect blossom if frost is likely. Garden fleece, mesh or even old net curtains will lessen the effect of frost on blossom.

• Feed fruit trees and bushes if you didn’t do so last month. If the soil isn’t too wet and the weather is mild, apply a mulch to bush and cane fruits. This will not only help to keep the area weed-free on crops like raspberries, which are difficult to keep clean, but it helps to protect the surface roots on fruits like blackcurrants and gooseberries.
Don’t forget to feed after pruning.

• Prune established blueberries. This fruit becomes more popular year by year and crops best on two or three-year-old wood. Cut out any old, unproductive wood back to the base to stimulate new growth, and remove any awkwardly placed branches.

• Prune autumn raspberries by cutting all the canes down to ground level early this month. They fruit at the top of the canes from August/September.

For lots more advice, see this month's issue, available to buy online!

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