March in my garden

thyme, nasturtium, calla lily, elderberry, lavender, sour grass, rose geramium,
johnny jump-up, california poppy, arugula, rose 'purple splash', calendula

While most of my wildflowers are still tiny little seedlings, I have many (mostly edible) blooms in my garden to herald the coming of spring!

I love adding edible flowers to dishes - in salads and drinks, decorating desserts and platters - they make food look so special.

But if I could only plant one thing, it would be tomatoes. We have lovely farmers markets and San Diego county has more farmers (and more organic farmers) than anywhere else in the country. But there's few things that taste better than homegrown tomatoes.

Plan

I do much better with seedlings, and I want to plant interesting varieties with top notch flavor so I head to Tomatomania for a pretty epic selection. While they didn't have the Gardener's Delight cherry tomato that did so well for us last year, I still came home with an exciting selection:

• Summer of Love
• Thorburn's Terra-Cotta
• Paul Robeson
• Black from Tula
• Gladiator
• Amish Paste
• Michael Pollan
• Orange Strawberry
• Black Cherry

But they didn't have a couple specific varieties I wanted so I bought some seeds online at Baker's Creek that look pretty phenomenal so hopefully I can manage to grow from seed this year. I also bought non-tomato seeds at City Farmers Nursery from San Diego Seed Co (chiles and basil). I'm thinking about where to place new beds for my summer garden, how I'll be rotating my existing beds to grow as many tomatoes as possible this summer, and whether I should have some top soil and compost delivered for new beds.

I've been wanting to build a circular series of beds with a simple rock bubbling fountain in the middle so we'll see if I make any progress on that this year.

I'm also thinking about how I might add a small lily pond, but that's more of a dream than a plan.

Prep

I've readied my westmost hugel mound for tomatoes and I have materials to build tomato supports. I'm harvesting the mulch and bedding from the chicken coop and yard for mulching the garden beds.

I'm going to be more diligent this year with caring for the seeds I'm trying to start:
tomatoes -

• Brad's Atomic Grape
• Dark Galaxy 

and chiles/peppers -

• heirloom poblano
• heirloom anaheim
• purple jalapeño
• chile de negro (I traded for at the Earth Day seed swap last year)
• Paradicsom Alaku Sarga Szentes

Weed

Now is the time - don't wait!  The ground is soft and moist, making it easy to pull them and they're still pretty small and haven't gone to seed.  Do it! Do it now!

Plant

I've planted many tomatoes with their companions (marigolds, green onion, garlic, basil, carrots), sugar snap peas (a nitrogen fixer), and direct seeded sunflowers, loofah & melons (a bit early so we'll see how that goes).

Also good to plant this month: radish, beets, broccoli, cabbage, lettuce, potatoes, greens, green beans, corn, turnip, cucumber, squash, citrus, avocado, macadamia, dill, marjoram, mint, oregano, parsley, rosemary, sage, thyme, dahlias, and the last chance this year for natives.

Feed

Fertilize citrus, avo, orchids, 3# on passionfruit, everything (except natives and drought tolerant) in the waning moon.

Water

I'm grateful for continued rain!
Water deep in the morning every 10-14 days if it doesn't rain, more often for new seedlings. I'm blasting my fruit trees (that aren't flowering) with water a couple times this month to help control ants, aphids, white fly & scale.

Prune

I'm pinching off new growth on the grape vines below the trellis to concentrate the energy into the growth to cover the top of the trellis.

Here's what I'm harvesting...

eggs, arugula, tangerines, eureka lemons, nasturtiums, calendulas, parsley, thyme, oregano, chives, lavender, lemon grass, rose geranium, lemon verbena, elderberry flowers