If you have ever been to Southern Germany, I hope you have tried our “Spätzle”! If you have, I just know that you loved them. If not, let me explain what we’re talking about here: Spaetzle are a kind of pasta where the raw dough is pressed into boiling water. You can either eat them as a side dish to beef or veggies with sauce or as a main dish for example with cheese (“Kässpätzle”) or herbs.
Here in Southern Germany, Spaetzle (which translates as “little sparrows”) are a common traditional dish. Although there are ready-made Spaetzle available in the supermarkets here, it’s so easy and way yummier to make them yourself. With this recipe for traditional Spaetzle I’ll show you how you can make Spaetzle at home and add a new dish to your collection of recipes.
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Before we start, I’m going to share some pro tips that will help you create great Spaetzle! After all, when you go all the length to try a new recipe, you want it to be a success!
Spaetzle recipe: Dough
The recipe for Spaetzle dough is quite simple, actually as it only consists of flour, eggs, a pinch of salt and water or milk. Use all-purpose wheat flour or spelt flour. You can even take wholemeal wheat or spelt flour but it requires more liquid.
The basic spaetzle recipe per person is
100 g flour
1 egg
1 pinch of salt
50 ml milk or water
That’s it. Easy, right? You’ll probably have all the ingredients at home already.
Many recipes use water for the dough, but in my opinion spaetzle taste a lot better when made with milk. This spaetzle recipe, therefore, uses milk. If you don’t want to or can’t consume milk, feel free to substitute it with water.
Spaetzle dough is best made by hand in a large bowl with a wooden spoon. That way, you can feel how thick the dough is and add some liquid to make it thinner or flour to thicken it. You can, of course, also mix the dough with a hand mixer.
You can tell that the dough is ready when it is thick and falls slowly from the spoon. Now let it rest for about 15 minutes.
Further down in the recipe you’ll find a detailed description on how to make Spaetzle.
Equipment
It’s easy to mix the Spaetzle dough but to press it into the water you have to use either a “Spaetzlehobel” or a kind of ricer with larger holes. If you have neither and just want to try out the recipe, take a sieve with large holes and scrape the dough through with a wooden spoon or a dough scraper. For completeness, let me tell you that you could also flatly spread the dough onto a cutting board and scrape it into the boiling water with the back of a knife. This method, however, requires experience and takes longer. But don’t let me keep you from trying it!
Spaetzle that are pressed through a ricer are long and thin whereas Spaetzle formed with a “Spaetzlehobel” are short and round (sometimes, those are called “Knoepfle” which means “buttons”).
I prefer making our Spaetzle with a Spaetzlehobel. Put the device safely onto the pot, fill in a portion of the dough and move the sledge forward and backwards by which the dough will be scraped through the holes into the water.
How to make Spaetzle
Make sure the water is boiling before you press the dough in portions into it, otherwise the Spaetzle won’t be cooked through and become a slimy mass.
When the Spaetzle are ready they’ll swim on the surface. It’s okay to make all the Spätzle before straining. The first batch can stand that.
When all the dough is used up and all the Spaetzle are ready take them off with a skimmer or strain them through a colander and shortly rinse with hot or cold water.
Drying
Although Spaetzle are usually used immediately, you can also prepare them several hours up to one day in advance. Either way, it is necessary to dry off excess water or the Spätzle will become doughy and stick together.
To dry the Spaetzle, put them onto a kitchen towel after straining them and distribute them evenly.
Let them dry for at least 5 minutes.
If you use them later, scrape them off the towel once they’re cool and dry and put them into a plastic container.
How long does raw Spaetzle dough last?
You can, of course, prepare Spaetzle dough and keep it in the fridge for several hours before using it. As it contains raw eggs, however, the raw dough shouldn’t be kept any longer.
It’s better to store the cooked Spaetzle. Dry and cool them as described above and put them into plastic containers where they will last 2 – 3 days in the fridge.
Angela Braun
Spaetzle - A Traditional Recipe from Southern Germany
Making traditional Spaetzle, a traditional dish from Southern Germany, is easier than you might think and once you've tasted them you'll want to make them time and time again!
Put the flour, eggs and salt into a bowl. Slowly add the water and mix the ingredients with a wooden spoon or a hand mixer. The dough should be thick and fall slowly from the spoon. You may even observe small bubbles under the surface.
Once the dough is ready, let it rest for about 15 minutes. This time is necessary for the dough to hold together and become more stable.
Heat water in a pot. When it comes to a boil either press the Spaetzle in portions through a Spaetzle ricer or a Spätzlehobel. Make sure that the device is about 2 – 3 cm (1 inch) above the water surface which should only be simmering now. Make all the Spätzle until you’ve used up the whole dough.
Cook the Spaetzle in the open pot until they well up several times and swim on the surface. Depending on the size and amount of Spaetzle this takes 2 – 3 minutes.
When the Spaetzle are cooked, take them out of the pot with a skimmer or strain them through a colander and shortly rinse with hot or cold water.
Place a kitchen towel on your kitchen surface and dump the Spaetzle on it. Distribute them evenly on the towel to let them dry and cool off.
Melt butter in a large pot until it sizzles and brown the Spaetzle gently in the hot butter. Serve immediately.
Spaetzle dough variations
Once you’ve developed your taste for Spaetzle (that is: after the first bite 😉) you can try many different variations of the dough.
Mix finely ground hard cheese, like parmesan for example or season the dough with spices like paprika or chilli powder. You can also add finely chopped herbs like bear’s garlic or parsley to alter the taste. Or take a mix of curd or sour cream and milk to serve as liquid for the dough.
There are almost no limits to the variations a Spaetzle dough provides.
Left-over Spaetzle
What do to with left-over Spaetzle? As you know, you can keep them in the fridge for a few days and then you can re-heat them in a pan with hot butter and season with salt, pepper and nutmeg.
Basically, Spaetzle can be treated like pasta or rice as a side dish to beef dishes with sauce like these beef rolls.
Or you layer them with cheese into a pan, fill in some milk and bake it in the oven for 25 – 30 minutes which makes for a yummy main dish, called “Kässpätzle” (cheese Spaetzle). Served with fried onions and a salad that’s a wonderful meal.
In an ideal world, we would just take the time once to make a planting plan for your vegetable garden and then stick to it for all the years to come. That would be so conventient, wouldn’t it? Alas, it doesn’t work that way. Cultivating the same plants in the same place again and again would leach out the soil over the years and bring little to no harvest. The solution to this problem is to implement a rotational system where crops are planted on a different field every year until they reach that first field again. This concept is what we know as crop rotation.
But crop rotation isn’t just an old farming technique: In a vegetable garden where we intensively cultivate a small(ish) amount of soil for maximum harvest, we also use crop rotation to keep the soil fertile and our plants healthy. In this post, I’ll show you what crop rotation is, how it will help you to get healthier plants, fewer pests and more abundant harvests and how you can integrate it into your garden plan. Let’s dive into everything you need to know about this game-changing practice!
What is crop rotation and what are its benefits?
Crop rotation is the concept of NOT cultivating the same plants in the same place year after year. That way, we avoid pests and diseases from getting the upper hand. There are many pests and diseases that specialize in one plant or plant family (see below). By rotating our crops, we keep them at bay and diminish the risk of them getting ground and permanently invading our garden.
Another benefit of crop rotation is the soil’s nutrient content and thus its fertility. As you know, we can categorize vegetables as heavy, medium and light feeders, that is, plants with high, medium or low nutrient demands. Cultivating cabbage, for example, which is a heavy feeder, for years in a row would leach out the soil fast of the many nutrients cabbage needs to grow healthily.
However, nutrient supply by crop rotation is not as important for vegetable gardening as the disruption of pest and disease cycles. After all, we do add compost and fertilisers to supply nutrients. For the same reason, a fallow where we grow nothing but a cover crop on a bed will not be necessary in vegetable gardening.
Together with companion planting (mixed culture), the use of eco-friendly fertilisers and plant protection, crop rotation is an important pillar for the long-term sustainability of our gardens.
How to use crop rotation in your vegetable garden
First of all, we need to understand the different groups of vegetables. The best way to do so is to either categorize our vegetables by the “family” they belong to or by what we want to harvest from them.
Understanding Plant Families
Plants, like humans, belong to different families. It’s important to know which plants are members of the same family as they usually show not only similar nutrient needs but also attract the same pests and diseases.
Here’s a short overview of the most common plant families and their requirements:
Family: Poaceae (sweet grass) Vegetables: Corn Nutrient uptake: medium
Understanding plant categories
Apart from plant families, we can also sort our vegetables depending on what we want to harvest from them.
There are five categories:
Category: Leafy vegetables Vegetables: Lettuce, spinach and Swiss chard Nutrient uptake: medium to high
Category: Brassicas Vegetables: Cabbage, Brussels sprouts, kale, broccoli, cauliflower, Savoy cabbage and kohlrabi. Nutrient uptake: high
Category: Fruiting vegetables Vegetables: Tomatoes, zucchini, pumpkins, peppers, eggplants, cucumbers, melons and potatoes Nutrient uptake: high (especially potassium and phosphorus)
Category: Root vegetables Vegetables: Carrots, turnips, parsnips, beetroots, radishes, parsley, onions and garlic Nutrient uptake: medium
Category: Legumes Vegetables: Beans, peas, lentils, chick peas, soy beans and peanuts Nutrient uptake: low; fix nitrogen into the soil
Crop rotation in practice
With two possibilities of dividing vegetables into groups, we also have two options for planning our crop rotation. But first of all, we need to
Make a garden plan
Before the planting comes a plan. Make a list of all the vegetables you like and want to cultivate. If you’re a fledgling in vegetable gardening, start small and only take a few crops. Then, draw a map of your garden beds, raised beds or containers and divide them into sections for each crop group.
At the beginning of your garden journey, I’d recommend sorting the vegetables by category (leafy veggies + brassicas, fruit bearers, root vegetables and legumes). Divide your vegetable garden into quarters and cultivate one category per quarter.
If you choose to group your vegetables by family, think about how many plants per variety you’ll need and plan the size of the zones accordingly.
Crop Rotation by Category
Legumes have the extraordinary ability to gather nitrogen from the air and fix it in their roots. For that reason, we only cut legumes after harvesting and leave their roots in the soil to enrich it with nitrogen.
Plant leafy vegetables and brassicas after legumes as they need the nitrogen the legumes have fixed.
Fruiting vegetables follow leafy veggies and brassicas. Fruiting vegetables don’t need as much nitrogen as leafy veggies and brassicas, but rather potassium and phosphorus. Too much nitrogen can even prevent them from producing many fruits. The leafies and brassicas will have consumed enough nitrogen in the season before so there’ll be no problem on that front.
Plant root vegetables after fruiting vegetables. Root vegetables need even less nitrogen than fruiters. At the same time, they’ll break up the soil which legumes, that you should plant afterwards, love.
Rotating by plant category can be easily implemented. Divide your gardening space into quarters and plant a different category in each quarter. The next year, just rotate by one bed. That way, fruiters are followed by root vegetables. After that we plant legumes and in the fourth year leafy vegetables and brassicas and brassicas.
Crop Rotation by Plant Family
If you want to rotate your vegetables by plant family, you must first look at their nutrient needs. Basically, you plant medium feeders after heavy feeders and then cultivate nitrogen fixers to replenish the soil. This could look as follows:
Brassicaceae (cabbage family) need lots of nitrogen, so they are best planted after legumes, which are nitrogen-fixers.
Root vegetables break up the soil, which makes it great for potatoes and tomatoes that need to grow deep.
Legumes like peas and beans love the loose soil that, for example, potatoes leave behind.
Members of the umbelliferae family, like carrots and parsnips, are light to medium feeders and can follow vegetables of any other group.
Rotating by plant family can be a bit trickier at first, but it also gives you more alternatives to mix your vegetables, especially when it comes to succession planting and follow-up crops.
Nightshades and Umbellifers (tomatoes, pepper, eggplant etc. and carrots, celery, parsley etc.) – Poaceae (corn) and Asteraceae (lettuce, salsify) – Brassicaceae (cabbages, radish) and Liliaceae (onions, chives, garlic) – Cucurbitaceae (cucumbers, melons, pumpkins, zucchini) and Legumes (peas, beans)
Crop rotation and succession planting
Most vegetables don’t occupy the garden for the whole season, so we plant fast-growing crops before or after them. This is called succession planting and we also need to observe the rules of crop rotation here. It’s not good to plant late cauliflower after early broccoli, for example, because, as you know by now, they are from the same family and category and thus have the same nutrient requirements and attract the same pests and diseases. You’ll find more details on succession planting over here.
A cleverly planned succession of vegetables will leave your soil healthy and nutrient-rich, while your plants will benefit from one another and produce a great harvest.
Here are some examples of succession planting that take crop rotation into account:
Plant late cabbage varieties, lettuce or onions after potatoes
Cultivate radishes, lamb’s lettuce, spinach or kohlrabi after broad beans
When you’ve harvested garlic, plant strawberries on that bed or sow broad beans; the year after that the bed is ready for heavy feeders like cabbages or Cucurbitaceae.
After onions, you can sow endives, radicchio, beetroot, or Swiss chard.
Plant bush beans, spring onions, Swiss chard, spinach or late cabbage varieties after fennel.
How to rotate crops in small gardens
You may only have a small space for vegetable gardening and that’s okay. In fact, most home gardens are not very large and that may make it difficult to rotate and effectively space apart different veggies. Nevertheless, you should still try to do it as best as possible to keep pests and diseases at bay and help maintain soil fertility.
Here are a few tips on how to rotate crops in small gardens:
Raised beds
If you have only a small space for gardening, building three to four raised beds may be a good idea. That way, you can rotate your crops according to one of the plans above while having a solid barrier between each area, although they may be close to one another.
Container gardening
Using containers is similar to raised beds and I especially recommend it for vegetables that are prone to diseases like tomatoes. Like with raised beds, there is a physical barrier between the containers and the rest of your vegetable garden and the risk of spreading diseases across beds is minimal.
Scattered beds
Who says that all vegetables must be grown in one place? Admittedly, when it comes to watering or harvesting, it’s easier to have all vegetables in the same location, but you can also create “pockets” and grow veggies on beds scattered around your garden. That way, it’s easy to rotate crops and make sure that diseases do not spread.
Advanced Crop Rotation Strategies
Integrating cover crops into your rotation schedule
Cover crops are great for replenishing nutrients while at the same time covering the soil. Cultivating cover crops counts as fallow in the vegetable garden, whether it’s during the whole season or just a part of it. However, cover crops also belong to plant families and can be “siblings” of our veggies. It’s important to know, therefore, who is related to whom to avoid leaching the soil and spreading pests and diseases.
Here is an overview of common cover crops and their family membership:
Family: Legumes Members: Cowpea, red clover, white clover, crimson clover, sun hemp
Family: Brassicaceae Members: Rapeseed, yellow mustard, oilseed radish, field turnip
Make sure to consider these family memberships when planning your crop rotation. For example, don’t grow any cabbages in a bed where brassica cover crops like rapeseed or mustard were grown before. Also, cultivating corn after, for example, winter barley or oats may be difficult.
Companion planting and crop rotation
Companion planting means planting those vegetables together (that is alternating or in close proximity to each other) that help each other grow better. For example, corn and beans are amazing plant buddies: corn provides a natural support for bean vines to climb, while beans add nitrogen to the soil, which helps corn grow stronger. Another great pair is tomatoes and basil – basil helps keep pesky insects away from tomato plants, acting like a natural bodyguard. If you want to learn more about companion planting, you’ll find a comprehensive guide here.
When we use companion planting within our crop rotation system, we’re basically creating a superhero team of plants. Each plant brings its own special power to the garden. Some plants, like marigolds, can chase away harmful insects, while others, like clover, can improve soil health by adding nutrients. This method is not just smart gardening – it’s a way of working with nature instead of fighting against it, helping to grow healthier crops and take better care of the earth.
Companion Planting in Crop Rotation: Four Strategic Examples
Nitrogen-Fixing Legume Rotation with Heavy Feeders
Rotation Sequence:
Year 1: Plant bush beans or peas (nitrogen-fixing legumes)
Year 2: Follow with heavy-feeding corn or brassicas
Companion Planting Strategy:
Interplant beans with carrots and radishes
Plant pumpkins with corn to cover the soil
Benefits: Beans naturally enrich soil with nitrogen, supporting next year’s nutrient-hungry crops
Brassica and Allium Rotation with Root Crops
Rotation Sequence:
Year 1: Grow cabbage family crops (broccoli, kale etc.)
Year 2: Plant root crops like carrots and parsnips
Companion Planting Strategy:
Interplant onions and garlic with carrots to deter carrot flies
Use calendula as a trap crop to attract beneficial insects
Benefits: Breaks pest cycles, improves soil structure, reduces disease pressure
Nightshade Family Rotation with Soil-Building Crops
Rotation Sequence:
Year 1: Tomatoes and peppers
Year 2: Cover crops or green manure (like clover or buckwheat)
Companion Planting Strategy:
Plant basil near tomatoes to improve flavour and repel pests
Grow marigolds around nightshades to deter nematodes
Benefits: Restores soil health, interrupts pest and disease cycles
Cucurbit and Herb Companion Rotation
Rotation Sequence:
Year 1: Cucumbers, squash, and melons
Year 2: Grow nitrogen-fixing legumes
Companion Planting Strategy:
Plant dill and nasturtiums with cucumbers
Interplant radishes to deter cucumber beetles
Benefits: Enhances pollination, natural pest control, soil nutrition improvement
How do you know if your rotation is working?
How would you know if your rotation system is working? Well, first of all, take a close look at your soil. It should have a deep brown to almost black colour, which indicates an increased amount of organic matter and a high nutrient content.
Secondly, track pests and diseases over several seasons and check if they have at least not spread, at best diminished.
The harvest yield, of course, is also a good indicator of whether your rotational system works. A good harvest shows good, rich soil which will be a result of a well-working crop rotation.
Start crop rotation now!
Implementing crop rotation in your vegetable garden is one of the smartest decisions you can make for long-term gardening success! The guidelines in this post show you what to do to keep your soil healthy, diminish pests and diseases and have a great harvest year after year.
And remember that even small gardens benefit enormously from crop rotation!
Start planning your garden’s crop rotation right now, and I promise you that by this time next year, you’ll be amazed at the difference in its productivity and health! Your soil will be replenished with nutrients, you’ll have healthy plants and above all, you’ll gather an abundant harvest.
Hearty German beef rolls, the so-called “Rouladen” are a popular dish for Sunday lunch or holiday feasts here in Southern Germany. Traditional restaurants have this delicious comfort food on their menus, and although they may seem “vintage” they are a still a big hit.
When my mom made beef rolls – or Rouladen as we call them – I loved to watch her as she worked methodically, spreading mustard over thin slices of beef, tucking in bacon, onions and pickles and them rolling them into neat packages. She had been taught how to do it by her mom who had it from her mother.
Rouladen aren’t just dinner – they’re history on a plate. Back in the days when times were lean, those beef rolls were a clever solution to transform ordinary ingredients and very thin slices of meat into something spectacular.
Many families have slight variations of the recipe, but these differences are more than just tweaks, they’re family legacies and regional identities.
So, when you slice into a perfectly cooked Roulade you’re not only enjoying dinner but your’re participating in a tradition that has nourished generations!
A few weeks ago, my brother slaughtered an ox, and I—like my siblings—got a mix of meat cuts, including beef rolls. Last Sunday then, when the inevitable question of “What’s for lunch?” came up, I could tell my sons that I’d make Rouladen with Spaetzle. You should have seen how their eyes lit up and they looked at me like starving men who are offered a feast. My eldest even delayed a trip for several hours so that he could have lunch at home! As if we only had water and bread all year round…
As it was such a hit, today, I’m going to share my variation of Rouladen with you. This simple recipe for classic German beef rolls doesn’t require many ingredients and is easy to make.
Classic Rouladen are really easy to make
Making beef rolls is super simple – a lot simpler than you may think. The most important ingredient is time for chopping vegetables and cooking the meat. But believe me: it’s so worth it! It’s also a great dish to serve guests or to impress the in-laws because besides it being delicious, you’ll have plenty of time to make everything, including yourself, pretty while the beef is cooking.😉
Beef rolls go well with bread dumplings or homemade spaetzle (a kind of Bavarian pasta) as well as mashed potatoes and vegetables.
What you need to know about my beef roll recipe
In some recipes, you get an exact amount of ingredients but I find that very difficult to work with. After all, the size of the rolls differs from butcher to butcher and depends on which part of the meat they have been cut off. Please bear that in mind when you make this recipe and take more or less onions, pickles and mustard. You’ll see for yourself when the filling is too thick to roll.
There are lots of recipe variations and every family has their own, I think. This is my favourite recipe for classic Bavarian beef rolls.
root vegetables like carrots, celery, parsnips, roughly chopped
1 tbsp tomato puree
¼ l red wine
¼ – ½ l vegetable broth
½ – 1 tbsp flour
Instructions
Carefully flatten the beef slices with a meat tenderiser or by pressing them with a pan.
Prepare the filling: finely chop the onions, the bacon or smoked ham and the parsley. Sauté the mixture in a bit of butter or tallow.
Spread each beef slice thinly with mustard, then with the filling.
Beef rolls in preparation: left with mustard, middle with onions and bacon and right with pickles, ready to be rolled.
Quarter the pickled gherkins lengthwise or slice small ones in halves and put them onto the beef slices
Roll the filled slices carefully so the filling doesn’t spill out. Close the rolls by binding them with kitchen yarn or by fixing them with a skewer.
Salt and pepper the beef rolls and roll them in flour.
Chop the onion; heat tallow in a large pan or pot and sear the beef rolls until they are browned.
Add the onions, vegetables and tomato puree to the pot and brown them as well.
Deglaze it all with the wine and let it simmer for a few minutes. Then, add the broth and let the whole thing simmer for 1.5 hours (40 minutes if you have loin beef) or 25 – 30 minutes if you stew it in a pressure cooker.
After stewing, remove the rolls from the sauce and blend it with a hand-blender. If the sauce is too thin, mix a tbsp of flour with some water into a thin liquid and add it to the sauce. Bring it to the boil and thus thicken the sauce.
Classic Bavarian Beef Rolls go well together with Bavarian Spätzle (a kind of noodles), pasta, bread dumplings or mashed potatoes as well as steamed vegetables or salad.
German Beef rolls
Hearty German beef rolls, the so-called "Rouladen", are a popular dish for Sunday lunch or holiday feasts here in Southern Germany.
mustard to tastehomemade quince mustard for example
For the filling:
100gbacon or smoked ham
2onions
parsley
2– 4 pickled gherkins
For braising:
40– 50 g fat
1onion
root vegetables like carrotscelery, parsnips, roughly chopped
1tbsptomato puree
¼lred wine
¼ - ½lvegetable broth
½ - 1tbspflour
Equipment
1 Pressure cooker optional
Method
Carefully flatten the beef slices with a meat tenderiser or by pressing them with a pan.
Prepare the filling: finely chop the onions, the bacon or smoked ham and the parsley. Sauté the mixture in a bit of butter or tallow.
Spread each beef slice thinly with mustard, then with the filling.
Quarter the pickled gherkins lengthwise or slice small ones in halves and put them onto the beef slices
Roll the filled slices carefully so the filling doesn’t spill out. Close the rolls by binding them with kitchen yarn or by fixing them with a skewer.
Salt and pepper the beef rolls and roll them in flour.
Chop the onion; heat tallow in a large pan or pot and sear the beef rolls until they are browned.
Add the onions, vegetables and tomato puree to the pot and brown them as well.
Deglaze it all with the wine and let it simmer for a few minutes. Then, add the broth and let the whole thing simmer for 1.5 hours (40 minutes if you have loin beef) or 25 – 30 minutes if you stew it in a pressure cooker.
After stewing, remove the rolls from the sauce and blend it with a hand-blender. If the sauce is too thin, mix a tbsp of flour with some water into a thin liquid and add it to the sauce. Bring it to the boil and thus thicken the sauce.
Notes
Classic Bavarian Beef Rolls go well together with Bavarian Spaetzle (a kind of noodles), pasta, bread dumplings or mashed potatoes as well as steamed vegetables or salad.
In March, we still have night frosts (and even some day frosts) but that doesn’t mean that there is nothing to do in the garden. Quite the opposite! It’s time to awaken our gardens and even sow and plant our first vegetables! There are several essential garden tasks that we should do in March and if you want to learn what they are, you’re in the right place here!
#1 Fill up raised beds
Raised beds are not only filled with soil but layered with different organic materials like twigs, leaves and plant stems underneath. When that material decomposes, it is reduced in volume which makes it sink down.
Now that your raised beds are empty, it’s a good time to fill them up with humus and compost. Fill more than the surface level, ideally forming a little mound as the soil will sink again during the next weeks.
#2 Create new beds
If you want to enlarge your garden space, now is a good time to create new beds. As you may know, I love this method of putting in new patches as it doesn’t require digging or other heavy work, is very quickly done and wonderfully effective.
#3 Sprout potatoes
It’s still too early to plant potatoes, but you can give them a headstart by sprouting them. Lay them out flatly on a surface where they get lots of light. I usually put the potatoes into egg cartons that I place on the window sill. After some time, they grow little green sprouts.
#4 Airing cold frames and greenhouses
With more sun hours, temperatures rise quickly in cold frames and greenhouses. Increased temperatures lead to increased condensation which can make our plants rot. Air your cold frames and greenhouse regularly to let the moisture get out.
If you have protected plants with fir branches against the cold, it’s now time to remove them. While they were great in winter, we now need lighter materials for coverage, like straw or a winter protection vlies that let the light through. Fir branches at this stage of the season are too dense and can even impair growing.
#6 Remove mulch
Mulch is not only a good protection against weeds but it’s also a good insulator. On the down side, that means that it keeps the cold in the soil for longer than we want to. For that reason, it’s an important garden task in March to remove the mulch from our beds by raking it to the edges. That way, the soil can warm up quicker.
#7 Weeding
Even though we’ve covered the beds with mulch, there will still be some weeds. When we remove the mulch it’s best to pull out the weeds that have grown underneath. Thankfully, they’ll come off easily.
Additionally, when the soil is now bare and warms up, weeds will also start to grow. Pull them out soon before they get too large.
#8 Strawberries
You can plant new strawberries now and protect them with a vlies. If you have strawberries in your garden already, remove all wilted leaves now. They may be infected with diseases and by removing them you can prevent those from spreading.
#9 Rhubarb
Another garden task you can do in March is to put a bucket over your rhubarb to help it grow faster. The principle is that the early spring sun warms up the air and the soil underneath the bucket which makes the rhubarb sprout faster. The lack of light doesn’t hamper that but makes sure that the stalks become especially tender. With this method, rhubarb can be harvested already about 4 – 6 weeks after covering.
#10 Seed-starting indoors
There’s quite a list of vegetables you can seed-start indoors in March. To get the full overview of what plants you can sow now, go to this blog post.
At the same time, check the seedlings that you’ve started earlier in the year daily. Make sure the plants have enough water and are aired regularly so that excessive condense moisture will not cause rotting.
#11 Sowing / planting outdoors
Admittedly, there are not many plants you can sow outdoors in March, but still, there are some. Here is an overview of vegetables that can be sowed and planted outdoors now:
Transplanted vegetables not only need protection against the cold but also against pests like snails and slugs who are very hungry now. A slug fence or collar is a good physical barrier against our slimy fellow lodgers and hopefully will keep them at bay.
Be grateful for every little helper 😊.
The last months we were reduced to dreaming up our vegetable gardens. Now is the time to take action! And although it may still be cold outside, we can already prepare the soil and plant some early vegetables. Grab your gardening gloves, hop outside and get gardening!
Where February still represents winter with a hint of spring as the days get longer, March is quite the opposite: spring with a hint of winter. There’s something magical about that transition from winter’s quiet to spring’s promise that gets my – still too clean – fingers itching and making me want to dig in the dirt. With rising temperatures in March, the list of vegetables to sow and plant grows as well.
While we can seed-start cold-sensitive veggies indoors, there are a few robust vegetables that can already be sowed and planted outdoors. Read on to learn what to sow and plant in March.
Loofahs belong to the cucumber family. As they like it very warm, they can only be cultivated in the greenhouse in my zone (7b). If you also want to include loofahs in your garden, now is the time to start them indoors. In my experience, it helps germination when we roughen up the seeds by grinding their edges on sandpaper and afterwards soaking them in lukewarm water for 24 hours before putting them into the soil.
Loofahs – like cucumbers – don’t like being transplanted, so I take larger pots and put in one seed per pot. That way their roots won’t get meddled with and we only have to disturb them once when we plant them outside.
Tomatoes
Mid-March is the right time to start all those tomato varieties indoors that you want to cultivate outdoors. Tomatoes for the greenhouse can already be started in February but if you have missed it then, it’s not too late to start them now.
Usually, eggplants, chillies and peppers are started in February or even January because they need quite a long time to grow. You can still start them now, however! They may be a bit behind their time but it’s not too late to grow them.
Greenhouse cucumbers
It’s too early to start cucumbers for the great outdoors but if you want to cultivate them in the greenhouse, now is the time to start them. As with loofahs, cucumbers do not like to be transplanted, so take a large enough pot and put only one seed into it. That way, they need not been thinned and can later be planted in the greenhouse without having their roots disturbed.
Leek / Onions
Sow winter leek and – if you haven’t already – onions. I either sow 2 – 3 seeds per small pot or I take a larger container and sow them in rows that I will be thinning later.
Onions I usually sow in small pots with three seeds per pot. When I transplant them later, I leave those small bundles of three together.
Lettuce
It’s best to sow lettuce every 3 – 4 weeks to ensure a continuous supply. There are some varieties that we can sow outdoors in March while at the same time seed-starting later varieties indoors. When it gets warmer, we can replace the harvested lettuce with those pre-grown plants and at the same time sow lettuce in different varieties directly into the beds.
Herbs
Parsley needs a really long time to germinate and if you haven’t started it already in February, now is the time to do so.
Herbs, like basil, savoury, chervil, cress and others can now be pre-cultivated indoors, as well. Either sow several seeds in large pots (and thin them later if necessary) or take small seed trays and put one seed per tray.
Cabbages
We have already seed-started different members of the cabbage family in February, but we can still sow (again)
Red and white cabbage
Kohlrabi
Broccoli
Cauliflower and
Savoy cabbage
Remember to label the pots and note meticulously the kind of vegetable you’ve sowed and its variety! You won’t be able to deduce it from the seedlings later. Believe me, I’ve been there and you won’t want to make the same mistake.
Nasturtium
Nasturtium is a great companion for cucumbers. It attracts insects that are harmful to cucumbers like aphids, white flies and squash bugs and thus acts like a life trap to keep them away from the sensitive cucumbers. At the same time, it confuses and deters cucumber beetles and nematodes.
If all that wouldn’t be enough reason to plant nasturtium, it’s also a pretty sight in the garden with its beautiful flowers and the whole plant (flowers, leaves and seeds) is edible.
Enough reasons to grow nasturtium? Grab your seed package and seed-start it now!
Potatoes
Sprouting your potatoes in March will give them a headstart for when you plant them in April. To sprout potatoes, lay them out on a surface and expose them to the light, for example on a windowsill. I usually use egg cartons in which I put the potatoes. After a few days, we can see small sprouts growing out of the potatoes.
What to sow and plant outdoors in March
Depending on your hardiness zone, it may still be too early to sow anything outdoors, but in zone 7b, where I live, it’s ok to do so – IF we cover the seeds with protective covers or sow in the cold frame.
There are early varieties that can be sowed outside mid to end of March. Just remember that peas are climbers and therefore install a trellis or net between the rows.
Carrots
Again, we’re talking early varieties here. If you have planted onion bulbs in autumn, sow the carrots in the rows between the onions. That way, carrots and onions will protect one another from harmful pests.
Broad beans
You can either sow broad beans outside in late autumn or now in March. It’s also possible to seed-start them indoors in January and plant them out now.
Broad beans are very tolerant to low temperatures and can even stand light frosts which is why they don’t need protection against the cold. I usually cover them with fleece anyway, if not for their sake then at least for my peace of mind…
Lettuce
We’re talking about varieties here that are very tolerant against cold temperatures like Asia lettuce and winter purslane. If we sow those outdoors now in March and later in April plant the varieties we have seed-started indoors now, we can continually harvest different kinds of leafy greens. This method of sowing vegetables every 3 – 4 weeks is called succession planting which not only ensures a continuous harvest but also that our beds are always covered.
Radishes
Radishes can either be sowed in a cold frame, a greenhouse or outdoors with protective fleece As they have an exceptionally short maturity time, sow them every 2 – 3 weeks to have a continuous harvest.
Spinach
Spinach is almost a no-brainer: sow it, cover it with winter protection fleece and just let it grow. It’s usually quite tolerant against the cold and will grow well under protective cover.
Planting outdoors
Before we plant anything outdoors, it’s important to harden the seedlings off by gradually exposing them to outdoor temperatures. Start by putting your plants outside or in the greenhouse for 2 – 3 hours at first and prolong that time over the course of a week before transplanting.
Lettuce
Lettuce that we have started in February is now ready for transplanting outside. Make sure that the seedlings are not planted too deep or they may rot. As a rule of thumb, put them into the soil as deep as they were in the pot.
Strawberries
Plant strawberries in March, at best different varieties that will ensure a long harvest, and cover them with protective vlies.
Spinach
If you have started spinach indoors, now is the time to transplant it, otherwise you can sow it now directly into the patch (see above). No matter which way you take to get spinach into your garden, it will still need a protective cover against too-cold temperatures.
