Gardening by the moon in March

NEW MOON
Saturday, 5 March 2011
Garden: 

Prepare, compost and manure beds for winter planting

A good time to collect seaweed and cow manure to use on brassica and celery beds, and for any other gros feeders.

Tomato, pepper and eggplant maintenance - mainly feeding and disease control. Stop delateraling tomatoes

Check grains for maturity and harvest

Plant seeds for the winter garden, such as cauliflower, cabbage, kale, broccoli, lettuce, celery, swedes, turnips, parsley, welsh bunching onions, silverbeet, chard, orach, peas, miners lettuce, corn salad.

Use neem oil on tomatoes and beans if necessary for shield bugs

Plant flowers for winter and spring colour, such as calendula, heartsease, stocks, chamomile, hollyhocks, sweet william, forget-me-nots, columbine and verbascum

Plant early flowering sweet peas.

Orchard: 

Irrigate all trees as required

Clean up herb banks and trim lavender

Pick and Dry rose hips

A good time to cut any coppicing trees in shelter or hedgerows for firewood or garden stakes, etc.

Make lists of tasks needing to be carried out in the orchard such as maintenence work on fencing, irrigatino or drainage or this winter's development before it gets too wet to carry out

Make a list to help organise winter planting and order any trees you need

Shift hawk kites and nets to protect fruit from birds

FIRST QUARTER
Sunday, 13 March 2011
Garden: 

Plant green manure crops

Check moisture levels everywhere as plants grow very strongly over the full moon period only if they have the moisture and nutrients to do so

Foliar and root feed three days before full moon for maximum growth

Use liquid comfrey on tomatoes and peppers

Prick out and transplant seedlings

Orchard: 

Continue moving bird scarers and nets where appropriate

Water subtropical orchard and apply manure, vermicastings or fertiliser of any sort to achieve strong Autumn growth well before the frosts

Coppice firewood and stakes from shelter hedgerows

FULL MOON
Sunday, 20 March 2011
Garden: 

Liquid feed three days after the full moon

Plant carrots, swedes, beetroot and turnips

Apply liquid comfrey to tomatoes and peppers

Harvest basil, tomatoes and peppers for processing

Orchard: 

Harvest and store apples and pears

Bottle, dry and make into jam, wine, sauces pickles and chutneys any windfall or excess

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 too wet

LAST QUARTER
Sunday, 27 March 2011
Garden: 

Prick out all the emerging seedlings for Winter garden

Transplant, weeding.

Turn under catchcrop 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.

Watch drying corn for bird and rat damage, leave on plants to dry as long as possible, then hardvest and put in a dry warm place to finish drying. You could pull the husks back, 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 a greenhouse to dry until crunchy when they can be jumped on and separated from pods.

Harvest the hulless pumpkins, but do not remove seeds for several weeks

Finish lifting and transpanting Spring flowering bulbs

Lift and plant rooted carnation layers in pots or fresh beds

Prepare and sow new lawns

Orchard: 

Check all young fruit trees and shallow rooted trees for moisture stress such as citrus, feijoa and subtopicals

Manure citrus trees now and spray with foliar seaweed / fish

Plant subtropicals only if you have water available for irrigation

Summer prune last of stone fruit which makes the job easier in winter, with less chance of disease

De-sucker any remaining bananas

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 winter

Shift hawk kites and nets over trees where fruit is ripening

Pick up all fallen fruit (or let chooks, ducks /pigs in to eat it - to avoid bugs overwintering

Thin inside growth of gooseberries and currants

Cut out old fruit rods of logan berries and raspberries, and tie new growth up