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).

What the New Sprouts Look Like

Depending on when you planted things, you might have sprouts now. Here are some photos to show you what those seedlings will look like when they come up.

But first, here is why chives are a great thing to grow. Not only to they come back year after year, but they do it very early, and in the exact time of year when good garlic is hardest to come by. So you can use fresh chives in things instead of cooked garlic. The photo is of chives in my garden a few weeks ago, so now they're even bigger. I have a few patches, and they repel some problem insects and attract helpful bees when they flower in another month or so.

Now, here are the new sprouts.

Peas (they didn't rot in the cold wet weather!):

Chard:

Next are the mustards. In a previous post, I showed you what all the mustards look like when they first sprout. As sprouts, all these varieties have nearly identical pairs of wide heart-shaped seed leaves, the leaves that open up from within the seed. Broccoli and others in the family have similar seed leaves.

Now that these are all a little older, they still have the heart-shaped seed leaves, but they also have their first so-called true leaves, which show the distinctive shape of each plant type.

Arugula (true leaves have a generally wavy edge and irregular shape):

Red mustard (true leaves are rounded with a toothy edge):

Mizuna (true leaves get long and are very jaggedly toothed):

Update, and Starting Seedlings Indoors

With weather like we've had, if you planted outdoors in the last week or two, it's quite possible you don't have any sprouts coming up yet. If I could have stayed dormant this past week, I would have too.

The good news is that some warmer (if rainy) weather is in the forecast! That should warm up the soil again and get things growing.

The bad news is that if you planted peas, this was the worst possible weather for them. When peas get very cold, wet weather right after they are planted, they tend to rot rather than germinate. That is life and death in the garden. But there is nothing for us to do but wait until we've had a week of warmer weather. If they haven't come up after about 3 weeks, then we have to soak some more, and plant them. The risk is replanting too early, and killing the original ones if they just were about to break the surface. So it's best to try to insert the new ones individually in the same area as the old ones but disturbing the soil as little as possible, in case the old ones are actually starting to grow.

Anyway, for now, you just have to wait and see.



Starting Seeds Indoors

This is not really an easy topic, and actually I don't really recommend it for followers of this blog!

You should probably stop reading right here! (Unless you're just too curious, or determined to start your own seedlings.)

Tomato plants, in particular, are the one thing on our short list that definitely should be started indoors. But most people just buy seedlings that have been started in a greenhouse. Purchased plants they will almost certainly be larger and stronger and mature sooner than if you start the seedlings yourself.

Basil and nasturtiums are other good choices for starting early indoors.

So if you are sure you want to grow those from seed, instead of buying seedlings, I will describe how to do it.

I do start seedlings myself. I haven't had too many failures with starting, but once in a while things don't sprout or die soon after they sprout. That's why I don't really recommend this unless you just really want to. If you want to try, do! There's not really much to lose, and for me it is always more satisfying to do it myself.

And now is the time to start them: it's now about 5 weeks or so until it will likely be a good time to plant warm-weather plants outside.

Note that greenhouse growers start their seedlings earlier than this, and so at planting time theirs will be bigger and stronger than home grown ones. However, new seedlings need a lot of light. So I plant later (now), when I will be able to put my little seedlings outside more of the time (because the weather generally will get better now - this past week notwithstanding).


Containers

If you have ever bought seedlings before, you know that they are usually grown in quite small plastic pots that are joined together. You can buy "flats" like that to grow in at garden centers. Those flats are very fragile, difficult to re-use because they tend to break when you take the seedlings out.

You can also grow in any small pots, in paper or styrofoam cups, or in other small containers that are not for this purpose, as long as they are a few inches deep and you put lots of holes in the bottom.

Lee Valley Tools has a careful selection of specialized reusable seed starting containers. Some of these are "self-watering", which means that the bottoms of the containers are open and rest on a fiber matting that wicks water into the pots from a reservoir below. I have one of these, given to me as a gift a long time ago, and it does work great, and has lasted very well. So if you want to get all fancy, they are a good place to look.

Generally speaking, whatever you use, you want lots of holes or large holes at the bottom, so you can "water from the bottom", which means you can have the containers sitting in a tray, and pour and inch or so of water in the tray, to soak up into the pots through the holes in the bottom. Soil, especially potting soil sucks water up from below quite effectively. That kind of bottom watering is much better for small seedlings. Watering from the top, it is hard to not crush the plants. Furthermore, dampening the plant foliage makes them more susceptible "damping off" (see below).

Self-watering systems, as I described, are definitely the easiest of all, because they constantly water from the bottom, as long as you keep enough water in the reservoir underneath that wets the fiber sheet.



Planting

Commercial growers, and very serious amateurs, start seeds in one container type, then transplant them into larger pots later, and then transplant outside, or possibly even into larger containers again. I don't do that, as you might have guessed, because that is too much work!

Fill your containers, whatever you are using, with potting soil. Potting soil is usually very light, so you need to fill the containers very full and compress.

Soak the material quite well, so that it will be wet enough to keep the seeds damp. Also, if you will be bottom-watering (which I recommend), the potting soil should start quite wet - it's hard to get it soaked through from the bottom if it starts dry.

Once your containers are filled and wetted, plant the tomato or basil seeds in them at the recommended depth - about a half centimetre deep for both.

Tomato seeds will sprout fastest and best if kept warm. My house is cold. They would probably sprout faster if we cranked the thermostat up. If you live in one of those apartments that is always boiling, you are lucky, at least for sprouting seeds.

While waiting for the seedlings to sprout, it also helps to keep them covered, so the surface doesn't try out. However, as soon as they sprout, uncover them, to help prevent damping off.



Damping Off

"Damping off" is plant jargon for very small seedlings dying of fungal infections. There are many recommendations to prevent damping off, including sterilizing potting soil and container, fungicides (both chemical and natural).

I haven't done those, but I don't usually have problems with damping off.

Bottom watering keeps the soil surface and foliage not too damp.

Keeping new seedlings uncovered and well aerated helps too.

Lots of sun is supposed to help, as well. That probably both strengthens the plants, and sterilizes the exposed areas (UV kills fungus).


Light

Seedlings need lots of bright light, as mentioned above. If they don't get it, they desperately try to grow unnaturally tall, hoping to get through whatever is between them and the sun. If they get enough, they will stay very short while they work on their root systems instead, which is what you want. Sunlight also is said to help prevent damping off, as mentioned above.

In general, you should try to get your seedlings in bright sunlight or bright outdoor light as much as possible without exposing them to killer low temperatures (say, below 5 degrees celsius).

The only caveat is if they have been indoors for many days to start with (not great, they will be spindly), too much sun all at once can shock them quite badly as well. This is also often a problem with commercial seedlings, actually, since they were grown in greenhouses or under lights, where the intensity was well below that of full sunlight.

In my attached house, I have only east and west window, nothing south, so whenever possible I ferry my plants back and forth, east in the morning, west in the afternoon, and put them right outside whenever it's not too cold.

What to Expect Now

Most seeds at this time of year take quite a while to germinate in the cool weather and cool soil. Don't worry if you don't see anything for a week or two after your plant. Peas, chives, and chard take even longer, while the mustardy ones: arugula, mizuna, and mustard, tend to sprout a bit sooner.

The most important thing is to make sure the soil stays moist the whole time while the seeds are germinating and also while the plants are extremely tiny.

On the other hand, it's pretty easy to wipe out the tiniest seedlings if you water them too heavily.

So being very careful not to kill anything, keep the soil moist. In the current weather that may mean you don't need to do anything, if occasional rain falls on your patch or containers. And once the seedlings have more than the first two leaves, they will have generated enough roots to gather moisture from a bit wider and deeper and it won't be so critical to keep the surface moist right at the surface. (But you'll want to make sure it doesn't dry out deeper down.)


It can be hard to tell what sprouts are weeds and which ones are your plants. That's where careful planting helps, because you can see the pattern when the seedlings start growing.

Here is what arugula, mustard, and mizuna look like when they sprout:

Notice the approximate straight lines of the rows. The spacing in my rows is pretty irregular. As I mentioned, I try to get them evenly spaced, but handling the tiny mustard seeds is a bit hard, and I'm not too patient. (Possibly some of those extra seeds were planted by my 4 year old who was helping me, but it's not all his fault.)

In any case, a little thinning is still much easier than a lot of thinning. Once the seedlings have grown a little, you can pull out the smallest duplicates, being very careful not to hurt the ones you are trying to leave in. With these types of plants (arugula, mustard, etc.), you can wash and eat the sprouts you pull out: they are very delicious! Of course, don't eat seedlings with poisonous leaves, like tomato seedlings! But all of the early plants for this blog have edible leaves - including the peas.

Even at this stage, the leaves of different vegetable types are often distinctive, however. These mustardy sprouts all have those very distinctive heart-shaped leaves. (Broccoli and Cauliflower have the same shape, since they're in the same family. Their seeds all look quite similar too.)  Here is a close-up:

Peas look completely different - I'll post a picture when mine are up. (They don't look like the beans I posted pictures of earlier, because peas don't raise their seed leaves above the soil like beans do.)

You may also now start to find weed sprouts as well. I have seen some now. As long as they're outside your rows and you are sure they are not the seeds you planted, you can pull them out as you see them. But there's no hurry to pull them out if you are not sure - better safe them sorry! I have, sadly, occasionally weeded my own vegetables. Hopefully once you have your own seedlings clearly growing and identifiable, then you will be able to tell for sure which are the weeds.