Transplanting your crops is like sending your kids to school for the first time

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You’ve fed them and nurtured them and now it’s time for them to go out into the cold cruel world. But you know that you've done a good job; so what’s to worry?

Before transplanting your plants, gradually harden, or toughen them, for two weeks before setting them into the open garden. This is accomplished by slowing down the rate of growth to prepare them to withstand the conditions of chilling, drying winds, shortages of water, or high temperatures. Hardening is done by slowing down the rate of the plants growth by withholding water and lowering the temperature. This is usually accomplished by placing the seedlings in a structure such as a cold frame or hothouse so that you can control the conditions they will grow in. Tomatoes and peppers can not be hardened.

If all this sounds rather intimidating, there is an option. Vegetable plants are grown out of doors in the southern parts of the country and shipped everywhere. The choice of vegetables may not always be as good or as varied as your own homegrown plants, but they save the labor of starting them in the house or in a hot bed. Tomato and pepper plants and a few others are usually packed with a little damp moss around the roots, but onion and cabbage plants are often packed with bare roots. Shipments by air mail and air express are more commonplace which makes the freshness of these plants a more positive thing and helps to ensure success.

Contrary to general belief, transplanting does not in itself stimulate the plant or make it grow better; growth is actually temporarily checked, but the plant is given more room in which to grow. Every effort should be made during transplanting so as to not interrupt the growth of the plant and to disturb the roots as little as possible. Plants started in small containers in the house, hot beds, seed-flats or elsewhere should be shifted, as soon as they can be handled, to larger containers so they will have more room to develop. They should they should be spaced 2 in. or more apart to give them room for growth until they can be moved into their permanent place in the garden. By placing seedlings singly into flowerpots, or paper cups with their bottoms pierced, when the plants are set in the ground, the containers are than carefully removed thus leaving the root system mostly undisturbed.

Soil for transplanting should be fertile; usually a mixture of rich loam and garden compost with a very light addition of garden fertilizer if you feel it necessary.

Moisten the seedbed before removing the seedlings; using care in lifting and separating the delicate plants makes it possible to adjust them with little damage to the root system and with only minor checks to their growth. Plants that have been hardened should be watered sparingly just before they're sent out, then they should be given a through soaking. Vegetables vary greatly in the way they recover from loss of their roots and from exposure to new conditions.

Experimentation and experience will teach you better than any written words in how handle different crops. If you do have a few failures, don’t despair, just try again.

To view a map showing the gardening zones in North America, click here
To view a chart which outline optimum planting temperatures and the number of days for your seeds to germinate, click here.
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To return from transplanting to planting, click here