March 2023

FULL MOON 8th March

Garden

Temperate Forest Garden

  • Harvest and store apples and pears
  • Bottle, dry or make into jam, wine or sauces, pickles and chutneys any windfall or excess fruit
  • Plant spring bulbs in orchard herbal ley, keeping in mind the range of flowering times from the Erlicheers to the last daffodils
  • Attend to drainage, fencing and maintenance jobs before it gets wet, and after ground softens up after rain
  • Mow and release trees, or manage geese to do it for you

LAST QUARTER 15th March

Garden

  • Prick out all the emerging seedlings for winter garden
  • Transplanting, weeding
  • Turn under catch crop flowering mustard or spray the beetles with neem oil
  • Check grain crops (quinoa, amaranth) for bird damage and maturity and harvest if necessary. If ready to harvest lay in a warm place in the greenhouse to finish maturing before threshing and winnowing. You’ll find info on grain growing in our old knowledgebase
  • Watch drying corn for bird and rat damage, leave on plants to dry as long as possible then harvest and put in dry warm place to finish drying. You could pull the husks back and tie in twos and hang over loops of strong string to dry
  • Harvest and process peppers, tomatoes and basil. Keep the best to save seed
  • Harvest summer squash (not the long keepers), the first of the kumara and onions and keep the best for seed
  • Harvest main crop potatoes, saving egg sized tubers from the best plants for a seed crop
  • Harvest dried shellout beans and put in greenhouse to dry until crunchy when they can be jumped on and separated from pods
  • Harvest hulless pumpkin but do not remove seeds for several weeks
  • Finish lifting and transplanting spring flowering bulbs
  • Lift and plant rooted carnation layers in pots or fresh beds
  • Prepare ground and sow new lawns

Temperate Forest garden

  • Check all young fruit trees and shallow rooted trees for moisture stress such as citrus, feijoas
  • Feed citrus trees now, and soak in
  • Summer prune last of the stone fruit which makes job easier in winter and there is less chance of disease
  • When harvesting fruit check all trees for size of crop, disease, other problems, so you can think about changes that need to be made over the winter
  • Shift nets over trees where fruit is ripening
  • Pick up all fallen fruit (or let chooks/ducks/pigs eat it) to avoid bugs over wintering
  • Thin inside growth of gooseberries and currants
  • Cut out old fruit rods of loganberries, black berries, boysenberries and raspberries, and tie new growth up
  • Order any fruit trees that you want for planting this winter

NEW MOON 22nd March

Garden

  • Prepare garlic beds
  • In warmer areas this is your last chance to sow silver beet, rainbow chard, endive, all brassicas except Brussels sprouts (too late), peas, coriander and celery
  • Plant compost crops in empty beds, if intending to use ramial woodchip to improve soil then plant lupins and Crimson clover with ramial woodchip forked into top 5cm of soil, and get in as early as possible.
  • Last planting of biennial flowers and herbs such as hollyhocks, Sweet William, columbine
  • Sow calendula, cineraria, poppies, snap dragons and pansy seed for flowers in the winter vege garden
  • Sow heartsease and calendula for companion to garlic, onions etc over the winter
  • Plant out autumn /winter flowering annuals that are ready now

Perennials

  • Once rains come cutback, feed, mulch and leave until Spring

Temperate Forest Garden

  • Root activity very high once rains come
  • Feed fruit trees while ground is warm but after rain comes
  • Also great time to feed trunk structure if trees with tree paste
  • Plan and organise winter plantings. Order any fruit or support trees for planting this winter
  • Take out any trees that need removing before it gets wet

FIRST QUARTER 29th March

Garden

  • In areas where broad beans are planted in autumn, soak overnight and plant into beds or into seed trays and transplant
  • In warmer areas this is your last chance to sow corn salad and rocket directly on the surface
  • Sow silver beet, endive, brassicas, peas, miner’s lettuce, parsley, coriander, daikon radish, turnip and celery into trays
  • Foliar feed three days before full moon
  • Finish planting any spare beds in compost crops such as lupins, broad beans, vetch and wheat rye.
  • When transplanting winter veges, especially brassicas, apply compost and fert if necessary and then mulch.

Temperate Forest Garden

  • Continue all jobs as in the New Moon phase