by Marie Hofer, HGTV.com
Sooner or later, those seedlings you've started indoors for your summer garden will have to go outside, and for any seedling, it's a big step—air and soil temperatures will be different, there'll be wind, rain, sun, the potential for drying out too quickly. Accustomed to more uniform temperatures, less light and probably more consistent moisture, the seedling could go into shock, and that's even before it gets taken out of its pot and placed into garden soil. Every year in Kodiak, Alaska, master gardener Marion Owen helps thousands of seedlings successfully make the transition. Owen, the co-author of Chicken Soup for the Gardener's Soul, shares her secrets:
Keep stress to a minumum. Owen germinates her seeds in the tiny blocks of soil created by a soil cuber. As soon as her seedlings have developed their second set of leaves, she transplants each seedling in its cube to a larger container such as a 6-pack or a 4-inch pot. "It's easy because the soil cubes maintain their shape, so you just pick them up with your fingers, and put in a soil-filled pot," Owen says. "You're not ripping roots apart, and you're preventing transplant shock." There the seedling remains until it's time to be set out into the garden. Every day she runs her hands gently across the top of the foliage to get the plants used to breezes.
Acclimate them gradually. No matter how you start your seedlings--in soil cubes, yogurt containers or four-inch pots, you'll need to help them adjust to change. It's much like getting children dressed before you sent them outside to play, says Owen. "Putting them into the garden means potential transplant shock, so we have a little therapy session. On the first day, take your seedlings outside, flat and all, and place them in an area where they're out of direct sun, out of wind, out of rain. Leave them there for an hour, two at the most, then bring them back inside. On Day 2, repeat, but this time let them stay out a little longer—three or four hours—then bring back inside." Each day, add a little more time, gradually adding short exposures to the sun (if it's a sun-loving plant). "Don't rush the process," Owen says. "Let it take a week or two."
Pick the right time for planting. "To transplant on a sunny day is sure death for seedlings," says Owen. "Do your transplanting on an overcast day. Or do it in the cool of the evening, or shade them."
Set the right tone. Make sure the soil is moist, squeeze the container at the base, slip it out gently, place it into new home, press firmly and water well. "If you don't have the chance to get them into the ground when they need to, put them in a cool, shady, but protected area, so they're not growing by leaps and bounds while you're gone."
Resources Soil CuberPlanTea
P.O. Box 1980
Kodiak, Alaska 99615-1980
Phone: 907-486-2500 (outside the U.S. and Canada)
Toll Free Phone: 800-253-6331 (U.S. and Canada)
Website:
www.plantea.com/question.htm#tools
Chicken Soup for the Gardener's Soul
by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Cynthia Brian, Cindy Buck
Health Communications Audio, 2001
Order this title from Amazon.com.
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