The Vegetable Plot - MARCH

Old cottage gardeners used to grow vegetables alongside flowers so if space is tight and an allotment not available, use part of the border for some radish, carrots, lettuce, spinach and turnips. 


Add herbs to the border, thyme, parsley, chives and marjoram. Grow crops in succession. A good time to start an asparagus bed.

• Sow spinach, onions, carrots, leeks, broad beans, celery, cucumbers, radishes, kohl rabi, shallots

• Practise successional sowing every fortnight or so

• Make the first sowing of an early pea outdoors

• Build or buy a cold frame for extra growing space

• Sow brassicas in a frame or greenhouse – cauliflowers, broccoli

• Plant mint, rhubarb, horseradish, seakale

• Put in early potatoes for early/late May

• Harden off vegetable seedlings grown in the greenhouse using a frame

• Sow French beans for succession in late March

• Under glass grow capsicums (sweet peppers) and aubergines

• Grow asparagus

• Treat peaches started in January according to their growth 

Gardener’s notes:

Border perennials to sow Achillea, Aquilegia, Campanula, Delphinium, Dicentra, Lupins  

Crops in season include broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, leeks, spring onions, seakale

Under glass: carrots, lettuce, radish, mustard and cress.