Tips for Transplanting Seedlings

Photo courtesy of sa ku ra at Flickr.com.

One way to get a head start on the growing season is to start your seeds indoors, and tend the seedlings until it’s warm enough, and they’re old enough, to easily survive on their own. It’s best to wait until your seedlings have at least two pairs of leaves before attempting a transplant.

Even when it’s warmed up enough to ensure survival, it’s a bad idea to just transplant your seedlings immediately; they might not be able to handle the sudden stress of going from the indoors to the outdoors. They’ll need to be hardened off first. Start by leaving them in a sheltered, shaded place outside during the day, bringing them in at night or during bad weather. After several days, you can leave them in the sun for up to half a day, preferably in the morning, when the sunlight is less harsh. By the end of the week, they should be ready to handle a full day’s sun.

Meanwhile, prepare your transplant beds. For maximum success, you’ll need to work copious organic material into the soil, and then spread a thin layer of fine mulch on top for weed suppression and moisture retention purposes. An inch or two is fine. Once the beds are prepared, you can make small holes in the mulch, put a little compost in the bottom of each hole for fertilizer, and plant the seedlings to the appropriate depth. If you’ve grown them in a peat pot, a handmade newspaper pot, or a biodegradable egg tray pot, you can plant them directly into the ground without the shock that removing them from their original growth pot might cause.

Once the seedlings are transplanted, water them profusely, and be sure to water them daily until they’re well-established. This shouldn’t take more than a week. And, make sure you check out our organic vegetable seeds and organic tomato seeds!