March Ramble: Get Excited For Gardening, But Don't Get Ahead of Yourself

With spring officially less than two weeks away you may be feeling a sense of panic about all the gardening that has to be done. Ah, but just think of being outdoors in the sun with the attendant joys of workable soil and dirt under your nails. Not just yet. This week, some tips and suggestions to make it a bit easier and logical. A March ramble.

If you have a south-facing balcony or patio you’ve certainly noticed that it warms up there sooner than anywhere else. This results in plants close to the south walls flowering earlier than on other places on the property, with snowdrops already done and crocus popping as well. Nice time to get your houseplants out and into the sun for a few hours? Don’t do it.

Just like us, plants get sunburned and seriously damaged from sun exposure after a winter indoors, even in a sunny window. There is no SPF 50 sunscreen you can put on them, and a sudden exposure to full sun outdoors will leave the leaves burned and damaged. Houseplants that will eventually go outdoors need a gradual reintroduction to the sun. Make these outside visits short ones, minutes not hours, and for longer periods drape them with something like Remay to give them protection.

Last chance to do pruning on fruit trees and be sure you’ve made arrangements for dormant oil applications. Dormant oil should go on fruit trees and rose canes. There are many other trees and shrubs that benefit from the covering that the oil puts on insect eggs and scale. Two other plants that will benefit are the Magnolias and lilacs, which tend to have scale issues. Your arborist is able to reference GDDs (Grower Degree Days) to know the perfect time to do this spraying. It should never be done when it will go below freezing at night, and it should be over 40 degrees during the day, which should be sunny and bright.

If you don’t keep a garden diary or journal this should be the year to start. It can be handwritten in a binder or notebook, but I find it best to use a digital device as this can allow you to do searches on words, phrases and dates when you need to see histories on your plants or things you’ve done in the landscape and just simple observations.

For most, Microsoft Word or another searchable and archivable document will work great. You can add dates (always use the same date formats like 3/15/21 and try to use repeatable key words like flower, bud, aphid, compost as you’ll be able to do word searches as well.) You can even use a cellphone that has a “note” function and share those notes over several devices like iPads and iPhones. On these devices you can even use dictation while you’re out in the field or garden, and your spoken words will be seen as text.

Every spring I mention that this is not the time to seed your lawn. This should be done in late August into September. Grass seeds respond better to cooling nights and warm(ish) days. They also do much better when not in competition with weeds, which are germinating in the spring followed by summer droughts. And if you are or your landscaper is applying pre-emergent herbicides to control weeds like crabgrass, grass seed won’t germinate at all. Lastly, grass plant roots grow better as the soil is cooling — as in the late summer — and not warming, as it’s doing now. Spot seeding may be necessary, but more than that will be a losing battle.

Keep in mind also that grass plants need fertilizer later in the spring, like mid to late May and NOT April. This is even more important if you are using organic fertilizers since the soil temperature must be over 50 degrees so that the soil microbes can break down the fertilizer and make it available to the grass plants. Cold soil results in wasted fertilizer that can easily end up being a pollution input for our ponds, lakes, streams and bays.

And speaking of pre-emergents, these are herbicides that can be added to garden beds and lawns to keep weed seeds from germinating. There are organics, such as corn gluten, but most are chemicals that are applied as granular or liquid materials. Landscapers and lawn care companies like to put them down early and often twice. There are now products that can go down later, be just as effective and only need one application.

Late spring is also a good time for lawn grub control but only if you are certain that you had a grub issue last year. It’s my experience that most lawns have grub control done — and they don’t need it. If you have someone who does this work for you, ask them what the justification is. Have they found grubs present in numbers that call for the use of the chemicals, or do they apply it just because it’s easy and another billable item? Merit is the most common grub treatment used, but it must be applied by a certified pesticide applicator.

It’s very tempting to leave piles of twigs and branches at the edge of the property or where the lawn transitions to woods. We’re learning that these piles, as innocuous as they may seem, are magnets for friends we’d rather not have. Such piles attract ticks as well as the mice that carry them around. Rabbits will push into the piles and make their homes in them and rabbits can be as destructive as deer when it comes to finding meals and snacks in the garden.

Speaking of ticks, tick tubes are one of the most effective methods of managing ticks around your house and garden. When these tubes, like Damminix, were introduced years ago they became an important tool in tick management but were very expensive. You can make your own, though. You’ll need toilet paper tubes or paper towel paper tubes, cotton balls or wads of lint from your dryer, and some liquid permethrin. Sawyer makes ready-to-use bottles of permethrin that you can buy at garden centers and online.

Lightly spray the cotton balls or lint with the permethrin and let dry. The tubes are then stuffed (wearing gloves) with the cotton balls or lint, and placed outdoors. Mice will “steal” the material and use it for nest building, and ticks on the mice, a primary carrier of ticks, will be killed and repelled. I use permethrin on my clothes as a tick repellent, but it will kill them also when in close contact. If you want to try out waterproof tubes, try six-to-eight-inch sections of white rigid plastic 1-inch pipe. The pipes, unlike the tubes, can be reloaded as they are emptied. More information can be found here, bit.ly/3dZVb7A. It will also work with chipmunks, which are also carriers of ticks.

One of the biggest dangers that veggie gardeners face is planting too soon in cold soils. The use of hoops and tunnels can help with this. These are structures built from wire or thin pipes that support a thin covering of plastic or a spun fabric. The tubes or tunnels can be closed (or opened) at either end for venting. The structures allow the plants and soil to warm several weeks earlier than if they were open planted allowing for earlier and more reliable planting and harvesting of crops like lettuces, spinach and other early greens. Most garden centers carry them as kits and you can find them online.

Larger structures like these are called “high tunnels,” and they can be used through the entire gardening season to lengthen the season at both ends and control light, temperature and insects. You can find much more about these high tunnels here, bit.ly/3uO2mpf. As these are considered agricultural structures they usually don’t fall under our local building codes. However, they can be unsightly, so consider the neighbors.

Don’t be in a hurry to unwrap your figs. This should be a gradual process that gives them fresh air but still protects them from frost and cold wind. Pruning out dead parts or rotted parts can be done when the unwrap is completed, which out here should be early to mid-May. For now, if it stays spring-like, just open the top or sides to let some air in.

Lastly, monitor your soil temperatures. This is critical in the gardens, especially the vegetable garden, but you’ll find it interesting in other areas. Remember that organic fertilizers, either dry or liquid, are fairly ineffective at soil temps below 50 degrees. Soil thermometers are inexpensive and can be analog with metal probes or digital with sealed metal/plastic probes. Keep growing.