March

These suggestions for your garden are intended for central Texas.  However, if you are not in central Texas these suggestions may still be helpful but may need to be done earlier or later in the season depending on your location.

 

March is a good time of year to prepare planting areas and get the yard in shape.  Soil preparation before planting a flowerbed or vegetable garden should be as important as doing the actual planting. By blending in a good soil conditioner into planting areas will help insure that the plants that will be planted will do much better and be better established going into the heat of summer. Some of the soil conditioners available are composted cotton seed bur, peat moss, composted manures, humus, and mushroom compost.

 

Once the ground is prepared now is a good time to plant hearty trees and shrubs. This is a very good time of year to do a spring fertilizing to the lawn. There are a number of very good lawn fertilizers available. I feel the best lawn fertilizers will contain more slow nitrogen, iron, and sulphur. Some of the better fertilizers available are Fertilome Southwest Green Maker, and Ferti-lome with Iron. And for the organic gardener Milorganite and Lady Bug 8-2-4 are very good.

 

This is also the best time for planting fruit and nut trees.  There are many recommended varieties available for this area.

 

Mark S. Ney   

Certified Texas Nursery Professional #4749