Spring Gardening: What to Plant Now!

Spring will be here before you know it! That means it’s time to stop daydreaming about your garden and start making your dreams into reality.

Whether you’re a veteran gardener or a plant newbie, the sheer number of seed choices available can be overwhelming. While you will have to do a little research into which plants grow best in your location, I’ve decided to round up a few of my favorite things to plant in March to get your garden growing.

1. Shrubs and roses

Confession time: I love gardens for their beauty more than practicality. I’m learning how to care for fruits, veggies, and other edibles, but flowers are my first love.

If the ground isn’t frozen, March is a great time to plant trees, shrubbery, and rose bushes as soon as you can. With roses especially, the sooner you can plant, the better.

It’s common for people to wait until much later in spring to plant roses and shrubs because they’re already in bloom. While this is prettier, it actually makes life harder on your shrubs!

When you plant them before they’re ready to bloom, they have time to settle in, grow better roots and prepare for the heat of summer.

 

2. Greens

For me, planting always feels a little too much like a guessing game. A common rule is to use the date of your last frost to determine a planting schedule, but if you’re like me, you have no real clue when that was.

I like using this tool from Almanac.com that tells me when the last light freeze occurred so I know when it’s safe to plant fruits and veggies. It’s not perfect, but it’s good enough for me!

Most greens are ready to be planted (or transplanted if you’ve started them indoors) by early-to-mid March.

This includes:

– Swiss chard

– Mustard greens

– Asian greens

– Chives

– Lettuce

– Collards

– Spinach

It also includes herbs like parsley, basil, mint and oregano. I love having lots of herbs because they’re generally easy to care for, grow consistently, and smell heavenly!

 

3. Cucumbers

Cucumbers are “cool-weather crops,” which just means they do best when planted soon after the last frost (hence why I love the almanac tool linked above).

When you plant them early enough, you can get a great harvest through the end of summer. Be sure to plant them in a sunny spot with plenty of nutrients.

 

4. Beets

Beets are hardy and pretty low-maintenance, so they’re great if you’re not super confident in your gardening abilities. You can even grow them well in pots!

Beets prefer cool weather (me too, beets), and they don’t need a lot of space to thrive.

Pro tip: Soak the seeds in warm water for a bit to soften the outer shell. This makes it easier for the seedling to grow.

 

5. Raspberries

Unless you live in a perpetually warm climate, most fruits need to be planted a bit later in the season to really flourish.

However, this isn’t the case for raspberries. Early spring planting yields the tastiest berries, so now is the perfect time to plant them.

Raspberries can be a little fussy and prone to root rot, so be sure you plant them in a raised bed that drains well, and give them plenty of compost.

 

How Does Your Garden Grow?

There are dozens of other plants that can be successfully planted in early spring. I’ve only listed a few of my favorites!

For a longer list, you can visit Sustainable Food Center’s planting guide. What are your favorite early spring crops to plant?

 

Image credit: Astgh Vardanyan on Unsplash, Laura Macneil on Unsplash