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March: Month By Month In Our Scottish Gardens
The Food Forest, The Raised Bed Garden & The Kitchen Courtyard
Our Scottish Garden in March
March starts to brings the garden to life. After months of quiet waiting, there is a noticeable shift, the lighter days pushes further into the evening, the soil begins to warm and signs of growth appear almost daily. The stillness of Winter gives way to movement and with it comes a renewed sense of energy and purpose. This is the true beginning of the growing season in our Scottish garden, where preparation turns into action and the first real rewards begin to show…..however, even though Spring has officially begun we still have snow, hail and morning frosts so planting anything more than the last of the bushes and trees is a no go.
Chives growing fast at the front border of the raised beds
The Food Forest
In the food forest, March is full of excitement, fruit tree buds begin to swell on the fruit trees, their branches no longer stark but dotted with life ready to unfurl. Honeyberries are in full steam filling the area with green leaves and life again, rather than just sticks out of the ground we have lovingly been keeping safe and warm with mulch all Winter long.
This month has also been busy with new structure and planting. Along the back fence line, we’ve been building up the new raised bed line we have added, making use of the edges now we have them and creating a new layer of growing space within the food forest. Into this, we’ve planted bare root hollyhocks, which will bring height and colour later in the year, alongside witch hazel, flowering currant, and forsythia. These additions will not only shape the space visually over the years but also extend the season of interest and supporting early pollinators—though the forsythia is less about the bees and more about us, as we plan to use its edible flowers for making healthy syrups.
At ground level, wild garlic pushes up fresh green leaves, forming small clusters that will soon spread into a carpet beneath the trees. The first signs of perennial herbs re-emerge, and the yarrow planted earlier in the year begins to show new growth. It’s a time of watching closely checking for frost damage, ensuring young trees are still secure and topping up mulch where Winter winds have scattered it.
There is a sense of quiet excitement here. The structure of Winter remains, but it is softening, giving way to the layered life that will soon fill the space once again.
Honeyberries
Back raised bed planted up
The Raised Bed Garden
March is when the raised beds truly begin to wake, the soil has a top up of compost, we use Caledonian Green Goodness a peat free soil improver that will slowly add nutrients and organic matter to the soil. On drier days, we begin light preparation, avoiding compaction and letting the soil structure remain open and healthy.
The last of the fruit bushes are going into the raised bed path we added last year but didn’t fill as we ran out of budget. Seed potatoes are chitting indoors, preparing for planting early April.
Indoors, seed trays continue to fill. Tomatoes, peppers, and more herbs are sown, joining the steady growth of onions, leeks, and brassicas started earlier. There is a rhythm now to the days, checking seedlings, watering carefully, rotating trays toward the light.
March feels busy compared to the slower months before, but it is a welcome kind of busy full of intention and optimism.
Top: Pheasant Berry, Gooseberry, Raspberry,
Middle: Cherry Tree, Sea Buckthorn, Redcurrant,
Bottom: Honeyberry, Apple Tree & Apple Tree
The Kitchen Courtyard & Indoors
In the kitchen courtyard over Wintered chives are among the first to bounce back, they’ll be moved down to the food forest in the next few weeks. Parsley and other hardy herbs begin to stir, while pots are tidied, refreshed, and prepared for the season ahead.
We have further plans to develop this area in line with our wider permaculture design. The intention is to add a roof structure and partial side enclosures to transition the space into a protected growing environment, functioning as a low impact greenhouse. This intervention responds directly to a site specific challenge: strong prevailing winds funnelling in from the open field, striking the house and creating a harsh wind microclimate that limits productivity in this zone.
As part of my Permaculture PDC PRO, I carried out a detailed site analysis and identified this as a key constraint within the system. The proposed design aims to reduce wind exposure, create a more stable microclimate, and extend the growing season, while improving overall resilience and yield in this part of the garden. Implementation is planned for this year, and it will be an important step in refining the site’s function and energy efficiency.
Page 143 of my PDC PRO Portfolio detailing changing this area
Inside, microgreens continue to provide quick, fresh harvests, but they now share space with an increasing number of young plants destined for the garden. The boundary between indoors and outdoors begins to blur as the growing season expands outward once more.
Check what we are sowing each month and take a detailed tour in our new monthly series: Month By Month In Our Scottish Gardens
Our little planter and water feature coming into bloom at the front of the house
The Season’s Mood
The Season’s Mood
March carries a feeling of awakening. The garden is no longer quiet, it is stretching, stirring and beginning to grow with purpose. There is birdsong in the mornings, longer evenings to work in and a sense that each day brings something new.
It is also a month of balance. Frost can still return unexpectedly, we’ve had snow, hail storms and high winds and also weekends of 15º reminding us to stay watchful and patient. Growth is underway, but it is still tender and still finding its footing.
There is joy in these early signs, the first leaves, the first sowings, the first real sense that the garden is alive again. March reminds us that beginnings are often small and gradual, but full of possibility.
2025 MARCH TOUR: Mini Food Forest In A Raised Bed Path You Tube Video
Happy Gardening!
Follow Us Across Our Socials
Katrina & Clayton and family live in East Ayrshire and share their daily life in the garden on instagram. They practice permaculture principles in the garden, reducing & repurposing waste whenever they can. Katrina shows how home educating in nature has helped Clayton thrive.
Clayton Completed The 2 Grow and Learn Courses with the Royal Caledonian Horticultural Society. He is Autistic, Non Verbal & has been Home Educated since 2018. Katrina & Peter hold their PDC & PDC PRO Permaculture Design Course from Oregon State University.
They featured on BBC Beechgrove Gardens Ep23 2022 and returned in 2023 for an update, Katrina & Clayton are also columnists for ScotlandGrows Magazine, Guest Blog for Caledonian Horticulture as well as working with Gardeners’ World Magazine and many other brands.
They are also Author of the new Children’s Book Series: Clayton’s Garden Journey: Stories of Autism and Gardening. Topics on Growing, Harvesting, Sowing & Composting and 108 Page Weather and Seasons Weekly Gardening Record Book available on Amazon and Kindle.
Listen in on their Guest Podcasts to learn more about them.
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Author of the new children’s book series: Clayton’s Garden Journey: Stories of Autism and Gardening and Sowing, Growing, Weather and Seasons Weekly Gardening Record Book available on Amazon and Kindle. Our latest book in the series OUT NOW Vol 5 : Clayton’s Garden Visitors: A Story of Autism and Feeding The Birds
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