miscellaneous

I actually took a look at the previous post that discussed preparing the soil (I’ll put it in the related posts) and we went pretty in depth. Good job past us! Since preparing soil has already been covered, I am just going to write about some trends that have popped up while I was researching for the past informational posts. If you wind up confused or don’t think something I wrote is correct, do a little research on your own and write a correction post/comment. I promise I won’t be offended :P

Direct Sow vs. Transplant

Most of the time, we will end up starting indoors and transplanting the seedlings outside after the last spring frost. This is to make the most of the time we have with good weather. In some instances it is better to direct sow and start outside. These plants would be root crops that mainly grow underground like carrots or potatoes. They have picky root systems and can easily die if transplanted. You can generally assume that we will start the plant early and inside. I will leave it to your common sense and googling skills to determine what should be directly sown outside.

An important thing to remember, is that right after you transplant the seedlings—WATER THEM!!! It helps them to adjust and water is always imperative for plants.

Hardening Off

This process is part of transplanting. When plants are moved from inside to outside, they experience shock from the new environment. Therefore it can take a while for the plant to start growing again while it adjusts. On occasion, the plant does not adjust well at all and will die. By hardening off, we get the plant gradually used to being outside and thus, it will have less shock.

The process is fairly simple and the biggest hassle tends to be coordinating everything. The idea behind hardening off it to essentially expose the seedlings to being outside without placing them in the ground. I would suggest, in the morning before school, to move the seedling trays outside where they won’t accidentally be stepped on. Then after school, you can either move it into the greenhouse. This should occur about 1-2 weeks before you plan to move the seedlings into the ground. You should move the seedlings to be outside the greenhouse during the school day so that they can get used to the weather and wind. However, if you leave them in there if you are super busy and do not have time, it should not harm them. If you start the process on Monday, then by Friday it should be okay to leave the seedlings outside during the weekend. However, if you do not think that would be good considering how the seedlings are at that moment, you could also put them in the window box or leave them in the greenhouse with the door/windows open. It is all circumstantial so use your best judgement!

Thinning

When we first plant, we always place several seeds in each hole. This is to increase the chance that at least one of the seeds will end up successful. However, what happens if more than one seed is successful? That is what thinning is for. The most relevant example that I can think of that was also discussed before was when we accidentally germinated the cantaloupe seeds that were still in the packet.

When the seedlings have reached the point where you can tell if the seed itself is successful, you will separate the seedlings. This point differs from plant to plant, but it generally occurs after the seedlings have sprouted several true leaves. If it is too early to transplant directly to the ground, you can move each healthy seedling to its own container. If you are transplanting, then you can just separate the seedlings and plant them accordingly. Now, they have to compete less for nutrition and have room to grow.

There are still other things to talk about like mulching, however I think I will end this post here with the beginnings of our seedlings’ journey to the outside.

Until Next Time!