Planting Transplants

The weather has finally gotten warm enough to plant warm weather crops. On our shortlist, that's beans, tomatoes, basil, and nasturtiums. In fact, warm and moist like this is ideal.

The only problem is that the soil is pretty wet from all the rain we've had already. If it's too muddy, it sticks together and to your trowel, and it's hard to get things planted well, so you should try digging a bit to see how your soil is. If it's already got lots of compost in it, it may be fine after just a few hours of warm, rain-free weather. Otherwise, you need to wait: keep checking and seize the soil is no longer too muddy.

It's best to soak beans overnight or even for 24 hours before you plant them, since they will germinate much faster that way.

The others on this list: tomatoes, basil, and nasturtiums are usually planted as seedlings rather than as seed. In principal, they can be grown from seed in the garden now, too. If you do that, you should know that they may take a while to sprout, and also they are quite slow growing at first and often get eaten by slugs or snails when they are tiny. So you should plant a few extra seeds in place and then thin out later.

But if you are following the usual practice...

Transplanting Seedlings

Dig a hole that fits the pot the seedling is in, but is deeper.

Add some compost (if you didn't just prepare the soil with compost this year) and try to losen and mix the dirt that will be surrounding and beneath your seedling. This makes it easier for the seedling to grow its roots, which will be quite deep and wide in most cases.

Carefully remove the seedling from the pot, with as little stress on any part of the plant as you can manage. It often helps to tear the thin plastic of a nursury pot away from the earth and roots in the pot. You are trying to disturb its roots as little as possible, since the roots are very fragile. The actual root hairs that absorb water are microscopic. The more you damage those, the less water and nutrients the seedling will get after planting until it regrows them.

Stressing the seedling and its roots as little as possible, lower the roots into the hole with one hand, and use the other to fill in earth beneath it and around it. Press down gently to firm up the earth it's now planted in.

Ideally, the plant ends up in a very slight depression, making it easy to water. Water by filling the depression with a cup or so of water, so you can see that as the water soaks in, the earth surrounding the seedling is well wetted, but not soupy.

For most plants, you should take care when transplanting not to add any extra earth around the stem of the seedling, which might rot it. Tomatoes are an exception to this: plant them deeper when you transplant them, as deep as the first set of leaves. They will grow additional roots from the submerged part of the stem, making for a stronger, healthier plant later.

You should make sure that the plants have slightly moist soil at all times for at least a few days, while they regenerate their roots. Looking at the weather forecast, that should be pretty effortless.

Buying Seedlings

It's now approaching the usual time to plant late spring crops. On the shortlist we have beans, tomatoes, basil, and nasturtiums. Off the shortlist, all the viney, meloney things like it very warm: zucchini, cucumbers, etc. Those ones might be better to plant out in another few weeks.

If you are planting tomatoes, basil, or nasturtiums (from the shortlist), you will probably be buying them as seedlings, unless you already started them from seed yourself, hopefully a few weeks ago.

(I did start things from seed, and my seedlings are still very tiny, as the cold weather inside my house meant that they sprouted very slowly. Next year, I think I will buy some seed-starting equipment: a germinating heating pad, and possibly a grow light.)

When buying seedlings, you have to consider whether they are 'hardened off' yet. If the seedlings have come direct from a greenhouse or indoor growing, immediate full exposure to direct sunlight and cool nights will be too much for them. That will shock them, slowing their growth or occasionally even kill them (unlikely). So it's worth giving them some gradual exposure to outdoor conditions after you buy them, if you're not sure. (Ask the seller, of course.)

Though actually, the weather forecast doesn't contain very much direct sunlight or cool nights right now. Nor much soil dry enough to plant in.

Next week, I'll talk planting the late spring crops, and about transplanting seedlings into the garden.

Weeding

Meanwhile, if you've already planted early spring crops, try to keep up on the weeding in regular small doses, to make sure your plants win. When yours are well established, then they will tend to shade out weeds and there will be less weeding to do.

Climbing Support for Peas

If you planted peas, remember they're going to need something to climb once they are about 3 inches tall.

Providing support often requires a bit of thought. For example, my fence is great for them to climb, but the good climbing part doesn't start until about a foot off the ground. So I have to bridge the gap with twine, which I wrap around and around from the bottom of the fence down to a long stick that lays on the ground. This gives each pea plant a string to climb.

The peas start spiralling around as they grow, trying to find something to climb. You can help them get where you want sooner by moving them to your string and winding their tendils around it. That is usually all it takes to get them clinging and climbing.

Waiting, Weeding...

If you've planted early spring things, now is the time where mostly you wait. Since we've had such damp weather, if you are growing under open sky, it's unlikely you have even needed to water. In any case, make sure the soil where you have planted seeds stays damp constantly until the plants are a few inches tall. After that, the surface can get dry, though of course you'll need to keep the root zone watered enough. More about that in a future post.

Weeding is also good, since by now many weed seeds will have sprouted as well. But don't weed unless you are confident you know which plants are yours and which are the weeds. Once you know that, weeding frequently is a great thing.  If you kept things small, then each time it's just a little work to weed, and the more often you do it, the less work it is next time.

If you are waiting to plant the late spring things like tomatoes and basil, don't be tempted to start early. It's really best to wait until about the May 24th weekend before you plant frost-tender seedlings outside. But to give you advance warning, you should buy the seedlings about a week before you want to plant them outside, so you can "harden them off". If the seedlings you buy have only ever lived in a greenhouse (which is typical), they will not be ready for the unshielded sun and normal night coolness. So you have to take a few days of putting them out in the sun for a little while, and bringing them inside on very cold nights, but leaving them out on moderately cool nights. That lets them get used to real-world conditions.

Fruit

Beyond our vegetable shortlist, if you would like to plant perrenial fruit plants, now is the time to plant strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, and currants. These are all plants that live for years, so you plant them in a place that is their own. Of these, raspberries and currants need more sun (but will tolerate a bit of shade), and strawberries and blackberries are alright with a bit more shade, but still need to have a decent proportion of sun. They are all great to have, producing a lot of fruit for very little work. The main work is stopping them from spreading (all of them spread outwards by their roots, and blackberries will usually grow way too tall as well if you don't prune them through the year).  Also it's good to spread lots of compost on the ground around them each year as well (except for blackberries, which don't need help).