Transplanting into the Garden - Carton 2 Garden

Transplanting into the Garden Don’t be fooled by an early warm spell — one of the worst things you can do to your soil is to till or dig in it too early, while it is still wet from spring rains. Working in wet soil compacts it, destroying its structure. How do you know when it’s dry enough to work in? You can’t go by the calendar. Instead, take a handful of soil, and squeeze it. If water oozes out, then it’s too wet. If it doesn’t ooze, then poke the ball of soil gently. If the ball crumbles apart readily, it’s dry enough. If not, then you probably still need to wait a little longer. Of course this isn’t an exact test, and results will depend on your soil type.

Hardening off Seedlings

Finally, it’s time to set the seedlings out in the garden! Or is it?

Up until now, your seedlings have led the good life in your climate-controlled house. The great outdoors provides all sorts of challenges to the tender, “spoiled” plant, and you need to give it some time to adapt. For example, outdoor sunlight is much stronger than indoor light. Just as you can get a sunburn if you are exposed to too much bright sunshine, especially early in the season when you aren’t acclimated, your plants can also suffer from sunburn. It can even kill them! Harsh winds and temperature extremes are other environmental conditions that can stress plants. So you need to gradually accustom your plants to outdoor conditions in a process that is called hardening off.

All plants that have been grown indoors should go through a hardening off period of one to two weeks before planting them outside. The first day, place plants outdoors in a sheltered spot for an hour or two. Choose a location in light shade and protected from strong winds. The next day, increase the amount of time and exposure slightly, and continue to increase every day until you are leaving the plants out in full sun and overnight. It is still very important to consider the weather when you’re ready to start transplanting. Even hardened-off seedlings will go through a degree of transplant shock. To minimize shock, try to transplant on a cloudy, cool, even misty day. The worst time to transplant is a hot, sunny, windy day. You’ll invariably damage some roots during transplanting, and hot, sunny weather can damage and even kill a new transplant.

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Transplanting Tips Begin by raking your garden bed smooth. Next, mark the spots where you’ll be placing the plants. Remember to follow spacing guidelines for the particular crop you’re planting. You can find spacing information on the seed packet or in garden books or online references. Dig a hole for your first transplant, making it slightly larger than the plant’s root ball. Gently remove the plant from the container, remembering to hold it by its root ball or leaves, not its stem. Place the plant in the planting hole. Most vegetables should be planted as deeply as they were growing in their containers. (Tomatoes are the exception, as they are one of the few crops that will develop roots on buried stems. When you transplant tomatoes, bury the stem up to the first set of leaves.) Fill in the rest of the hole with soil, gently firming it around the root ball. As you firm the soil, create a shallow well around the plant, so that water will gather there instead of immediately running off. It’s a good idea to protect seedlings against cutworm damage at planting time. Cutworms are night-feeding caterpillars that can sever the stems of young plants at the soil line. An easy way to protect plants is to fashion a collar from a coated milk carton. Cut away the bottom of a cleaned carton; then cut the sides of the carton down to 3 inches high. Cut through one side so that you can open up the strip of carton material. Place this strip in a circle in the soil around the base of the plant, overlapping the cut ends slightly. Another way to protect plants is to wrap several layers of newspaper strips around the base of the stem. Either type of cutworm collar should extend about an inch into the soil and two inches above the soil line. Once you’ve finished transplanting, water all the plants gently, and thoroughly. If your plants will need supports as they grow, such as stakes for tomatoes or a trellis for cucumbers, put these supports in place at planting time. Otherwise you risk damaging the plants’ developing root system when you drive the supports into the soil. You’ve got your garden planted ... now you can sit back and wait for your first tomato? Right? Not quite.... New transplants still need some TLC.

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Water First, you’ll need to make sure the soil stays moist. New seedbeds and transplants may need watering every day — or even twice a day if the weather is very warm and sunny. After a few weeks, once the roots have had a chance to develop, you may be able to cut back to every few days. Mature plants shouldn’t need watering more than once a week — if nature hasn’t provided. But in the beginning, you’ll need to be vigilant.

Nutrients If you’ve been fertilizing your indoor seedlings on a schedule, you may want to stick with it. If you mixed in slow-release fertilizer at planting time, that should provide adequate nutrients. And if you’ve had a soil test done and added the recommended amendments over the years, you may not need to fertilize at all — or at least not until the plants are beginning to produce.

Protection Cold snaps can ruin a garden overnight. Be prepared to cover the garden if cold weather threatens. You can use just about anything — floating row covers, a tarp, or even old sheets and blankets — to keep frost off plants. Unfortunately, some heat-loving plants may be irreversibly damaged by a prolonged cold spell. That’s why it’s critical to wait until the proper planting time, to reduce the likelihood that a late cold snap will harm plants.

Pests Try to spend some time in the garden every day, even if it’s only a few minutes. That way, you can pull some weeds, check soil moisture, and observe your plants. If you can catch problems early, you’ll have a better chance of correcting them before permanent damage is done. And by getting to know what a healthy plant looks like, you’ll be aware when a plant is in trouble. Much of this knowledge comes only from experience. And experience comes from spending time in the garden!

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