In March, gardeners should focus on various tasks including planting lettuce, pruning fruit trees, and preparing vegetable beds as nature awakens. Specific tips include proper planting techniques for vegetables, maintaining soil health, and combating pests such as the thorn mite. Early spring is also an ideal time for cutting perennials and ensuring proper care for fruit-bearing plants to promote healthy growth and yield.

1. Kitchen Garden: Top Gardening Tips in
March
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Vegetable gardeners can expect a lot of gardening work in the kitchen garden in March
because nature has finally woken up from hibernation. Our gardening tips for the kitchen
garden in Mars give you a quick overview of the most important gardening tasks this month -
from planting vegetables to pruning fruit trees and fighting plant diseases, it's all covered.
Depending on the weather, you can move the lettuce plants you have grown into the open
field by mid-March. Make sure you don't plant the young plants too deep or they will be
susceptible to fungus and will not form heads. After planting, lettuce plants can be a bit
wobbly - the stems stiffen within a few days and the plants then continue to grow upright.

2. Pickled lettuce can be planted widely in small beds instead of rows. Simply sprinkle the
seeds into the weed-free soil and then lightly tamp them down. The first young leaves are
harvested as lettuce. Then you should gradually thin the plants to a distance of 25 to 30
centimeters and use them later as a lettuce.
What tasks should be high on the gardener's to-do list in March? Karina Nennstiel finds it out
for you in this episode of our "Grünstadtmenschen" podcast - as always "short and dirty" in
just under five minutes. Listen now!
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Refined varieties of pears and apples on seedling bases grow into magnificent trees over the
years. In contrast to their weak growing relatives, high flows are expected as late as possible
in the spring. Reason: The later the fruit tree is pruned, the weaker the trees sprout and the
higher the fruit production.
In this video, our editor Dieke shows you how to properly prune an apple tree.
Credits: Production: Alexander
Buggisch; Camera and editing: Artyom
Baranow
Early spring is the best time to cut perennials such as thyme, thyme, sage, rosemary and
hyssop. It is best to cut the plants, which are usually woody at the base, by about one to two
thirds with scissors. The result: the bushes become drier and form more aromatic leaves.
Apple berries or chokeberry (Aronia melanocarpa) are easy to care for, but by no means as
undemanding as is often claimed. The shrub, which originates from North America, grows
naturally in more acidic soils. In loamy and calcareous soil they develop thin shoots and

4. have no or only rare flowers and fruits. Waterlogging is tolerated as poorly as constant
drought. As with cultivated blueberries, it is best to plant in a mixture of humus-rich garden
soil and compost made from coniferous forests and cover the bed thickly with soft wood
husks. Growing some shrubs provides pollination and fruit setting. Don't forget to water in
summer!
Before planting carrots, mix a bag of carrot seeds with a handful of wet sand and let the
seeds soak in a covered container at room temperature for three days. This shortens the
germination time in the bed by about a week. The whole thing has another advantage: the
seed-sand mix prevents planting too densely in the bed.
The thicker, sweeter fruits of cultivated blueberries grow on annual side branches. Therefore,
cut the tips of branched branches right above a one-year-old shoot. In addition, remove old
branches that only provide small sour berries directly at the base of the shoot. To do this, pull
the right number of young, strong shoots to the ground. Also cut the weak young buds. Our
garden tip: If there are not enough shoots in the ground, cut the oldest shoots to knee height.
These then again form new, fertile lateral branches.
A cold frame is very suitable for pre-cultivating various cabbage plants. Plant kohlrabi,
cauliflower and other species as early as March because they take about 30 to 40 days
before they reach seedling size and can be transplanted into the garden bed. Make sure you
have a good water supply and ventilate regularly, because the temperature inside should not
exceed 22 to 25 degrees Celsius.
Growing horseradish, with its leaves up to a meter long, is very easy. In fact, it's not that
easy to get rid of healthy root vegetables once they're established in the garden. That's why
you plant just a few, about 30-centimeter-long root pieces in the spring at an angle in
nutrient-rich soil. By fall, many new lateral roots will grow that can be dug up and harvested.
The thorn mite is one of the most important pests in berry fruit cultivation, otherwise quite
easy. In the spring, small arachnids migrate from the rods that bore fruit last year to the
flower buds of new rods. Thinning is best done in winter, but at the latest before flowering.
Cut any two-year-old canes close to the ground. Their distinctive feature is the dark bark.
Then tie five to six new strong, still green rods to the cage and shorten all the side loops to
two loops. In cold regions you should wait until milder weather is expected because of the
risk of frost. Finally, excess, weak soil shoots are also removed.
Wild relatives of the berry bushes mainly grow in woodland or on the edge of the forest.
There they are used for humus-rich soils, which are covered with a layer of leaves every fall.

5. If you want to mimic these conditions in the garden, you should cover the root space of your
berry bushes with a mixture of shredded shrub clippings and compost. When the first lawn is
cut, you can also use it as mulch when it is dry.
If you put onions in water for a day, they will take root faster. In addition, onions do not push
themselves up later in the ground. Connect the onions with a distance of about five
centimeters and with a space of 20 centimeters. After two months you can harvest the first
bulbs, making room in the bed for the remaining plants.
Peas such as peas or peas withstand light frosts and can be planted at the beginning of the
month (row spacing 40 centimeters, in a row five centimeters). The variety 'Germana' has
many light green pods with nine to eleven sweet berries each. Tip: mulch young plants with
mulch as soon as they are tall. Twigs stuck in a row serve as a means of climbing.
You should cut your kiwi plant by March at the latest. Of last year's buds, only short sections
of three to five buds remain at regular intervals. Young shoots with flower buds in four to six
leaf axils emerge from them in spring. Since all buds can bear fruit only once, the removed
buds should be narrowed in the spring to the side buds that have so far not borne fruit.
Infections with the fungus Monilia laxa now occur at flowering time and in almond trees and
cherries (more cherries, for example, are very susceptible) can lead to lace damage and
flower drought. Here, the shoots begin to dry from the top, and the flowers also turn brown,
but remain on the tree for the next few weeks. Fungi overwinter in dry areas. There it forms a
layer of gray spores in early spring that infects new flowers. Wet and cool weather promotes
infection. Use suitable pesticides for control during the flowering period (for example Duaxo
Universal without fungus). Prune severely affected cuttings!
Small fruit trees especially on weakly growing rootstocks need regular nutrients from the first
year of planting. The need is higher during flowering and fruiting. Slow-acting organic garden
fertilizers (eg Neudorff Acet Berry Fertilizer) should be applied from late February to early
March so that nutrients are available at the right time. A second fertilization takes place at
the end of May. Mineral fertilizers (eg berry & fruit fertilizers, substrate) are released faster
and should be spread on the surface about four weeks later, ie. from the end of March to the
beginning of April and from the middle of June.

6. Now that winter is almost over, you should cut off any brown or withered leaves on your
strawberries. In addition, I carefully loosen the soil between plants with shallow roots. After
that, you should work some compost into the beds. In order for strawberries to have a good
start to the season, all weeds in and between the rows must be removed. If you want to
harvest early, cover your strawberry bed with black foil with holes in the bottom - this way the
soil warms up faster and the plants bloom earlier. When the first flowers appear, the film
must be removed again.
Now is the time to prepare the beds in the vegetable garden that have been dug or loosened
with the tines of the planter for planting. To do this, spread about five liters of fine,
well-ripened compost per square meter, which you have previously mixed with a handful of
shavings and work the mixture flat with a cultivator. Even thick clods of soil are crushed at
the same time. Then let the bed rest for about ten days. During this time, some weeds
sprout, which you rake out when you finally level the bed area. Immediately afterwards you
can plant the first types of vegetables.
By early March, the light intensity is sufficient to grow tomato seeds in seed trays on a
south-facing windowsill. Within two months, the plants become so vigorous that they can be
moved to a greenhouse or a tomato house. Good protection from rain is recommended
outdoors, as otherwise plants can easily develop late blight and brown rot.
In this video we will show you how to drill the seedlings properly.
Credit: MSG / Alexandra Tistounet /
Alexander Buggisch

7. Start growing celery now: the seeds need light to germinate, so they should only be lightly
pressed into the soil. Germination is fastest at temperatures between 18 and 22 degrees.
Always keep the substrate moist, but not wet, with a spray bottle. When the first leaflets are
seen, you can break the plants and place them four centimeters apart. Then water the
seedlings only a little and add a little liquid fertilizer to the irrigation water once a month.
Preculture takes a total of about eight weeks.