How To Harden Off Vegetable & Flower Plants - Episode 207

Welcome to the Simple Garden Life podcast, a program dedicated to keeping the yard
of gardening simple, fun and always rewarding. Now Here are your hosts,
Jim and Mary Competti. Hello and welcome everybody to Simple Garden Life. I'm
your host Jim Competti along with my co host Mary Competti, and today's subject
is hardening off plants. Mary, that's something that's really really important for the
health of your plants, for young seedlings in the beginning of garden season.
Absolutely, it really makes me excited because that means we're actually getting close to
planting season. I'll tell you it doesn't always feel that way with the rain
and the cold that we have. But it's been crazy spring here so far
this year. But isn't every spring really when you think about it. I
mean, there's no doubt about it that you think it's going to be better
than the year before, but it just never works out that way. And
this year is he's to be dragging on and on winter does in the spring
itself, just lots of rain, But we're gonna get close someday, that's
right. So before we get into our subject today, I do want to
remind everybody that you can always email us at the farm at owgarden dot com
with your questions show topics if you want to talk about show topics, but
we do answer everyone. We try to get back with everyone with a couple
of days. Gets a little harder these days and we get a lot more
emails come garden season. But it's fun for us too, you know.
It gives us a chance to connect to people and we look forward to that.
But more importantly, it allows us to you know, stay in touch
with our listeners and readers to the blog of Overal Garden Farms and this is
my garden and all of our other websites, so it's it's it's really a
positive thing for us, it is, and we get a lot of good
questions that lead to a lot of great topics that we write about, so
we enjoy reading those every morning. That's right. And you can also maybe
get featured on our podcast because we do a question of the week and we
have one today actually from Canada that we'll get to later in the podcast.
But let's get back to hardening all plants and why it is so important.
You know, it's really one of the most important things you can do in
the spring to get your vegetable and flower plants off to a great start.
You just can't take your plants and go outside and put them in the ground
and expect good things to happen from that easy indoor life to the outdoor life.
You know, whether you raise your own plants from seed indoors or as
we talked about, purchase transplants from a local nursery or greenhouse. Preparing them
properly for planting day, Boy, it's crucial to their health early on and
if they're going to bloom well or perform well in the garden. Yeah,
and when done correctly, it really sets the stage for plants to take hold,
established and grow very fast, that's right. And when they're not done
that way, the shock and the stress can really injure and stunt damage them
in some cases. And we've had this happen to us before, you know,
just it can happen to anybody. It can kill a plant if it's
not properly ready to be outside. You know. The hardening off is a
confusing topic for some people. They really sometimes don't know what it means and
they don't really understand Okay, what does what does that whole process mean?
I guess we should really start off with that, like what does hardening off
vegetable and flower plants mean? Right? And you know, basically we're talking
about prepare your plants to be living outdoors. So you know, just like
we don't like to be outdoors when it's cold outside or raining, you know,
we've got to get our plants ready for the outdoors. And sometimes,
you know, spring planting season, it's very tricky for plants because they're going
to be in different elements that they ever wore in. That's right, and
let's let's cover that subject first. So for a seedling and a transplant,
whether you raise it at home in your house with some lights over top of
it, or and that's the best way, by the way, not in
a window sill, but if you have it in a window sill, or
whether it's in a greenhouse where they're in that controlled environment. You have to
really think about the seedling's life up to the point before it goes outdoors.
We always like to talk about it like a child that's very spoiled because it
gets absolutely everything it needs. When it needs water, the bright amount of
light. There are zero winds. The last time I check thunderstorms don't develop
inside a house. So you know, the seedlings at that point are very
very just protected, protected and sheltered. It's right, I mean they really
are. I mean you don't have you know, instant frost or that temperature
drop. And really one of the biggest things we'll talk about protecting these plants
is wind. You know, when your plants first go from the inside to
the outside, they've never experienced that, and it can really be detrimental to
a plant. Yeah, getting plants, transplants ready for just the mother's nature's
elements is really crucial here. Yeah, So you know, when a plant
goes outside for the first time, and especially in the springtime, it's not
going to go out to seventy two degrees and sonny every single day and sixty
at night and perfect. It's going to have days where you might even have
to cover it because the temperature gets down to thirty six or thirty five.
And then it's going to have some days. I pray for these days right
now where it might actually get above sunnty degrees or seventy five degrees and sonny
and be a little bit hot on it. And again it's not used to
that inside, so hardening off. What hardening off is is this process of
preparing or toughening up these young plants so that when they go out to deal
with those extremes, they've had a little bit of experience. You know,
you can't just throw somebody to the wolves for the first time if they don't
know anything about it. And if you're doing that with your plants, that's
exactly what you're doing. If you're taking them from inside where they've been perfect,
and all of a sudden you take them outside, put them in the
ground and say there you go. Right, And if you are lucky enough
to live in a warm tropical environment, this may not be that much of
an issue if you can actually raise your seedlings outside. But we're talking those
transplants that are being protected inside, are growing inside that have to eventually go
into the flower beds or gardens outside. Yes, and so hardening off is
usually a process for us, and it really should be for transplants that you
raised yourself of a couple of weeks, two to three weeks. It really
depends on your weather. The more you can harden a plant off and prepare
for the outdoors, the better. But for us, I would say on
average, it's about three weeks. Sometimes it's a little longer if it's a
nicer spring, and how it goes. But you know that process starts when
plants get to be about three to four weeks old. You know, you've
grown them inside for a while. They're starting to grow up a little bit,
they're getting stronger. You have them under the lights. In some cases
maybe they're grating too tall for it, and the weather outside is starting to
warm, Mary to what fifty fifty five sixty degrees a side day here and
there, definitely want to put them out of a lease it's a round fifty
five or above. Yeah, exactly, especially that very first time. So
what you're going to do with your plants is you're going to take them outside.
And this is where we have to really kind of get into the specifics
of well, what do you do when you're outside and and you know,
where do you put them? And that's what we're going to talk about right
now, because that's really the important part. Okay, Mary, So first
day, what do we do, Well, you basically want to take your
plants outside, allow them to get a little bit of sunlight, but just
a few hours at the most. You know, you've got to really work
your way up to transitioning these plants to the outdoors. So on day one,
do you take them straight out and put them right out in the middle
of the sun. No, exactly, you want to put them in a
protected area that they get a little bit of indirect sunlight. Not if it's
a very hot day. Don't put them right in the sunlight. When it's
eighty five ninety degrees. Yeah, for us, and for many people,
covered back porch, a screened in porch, something where there's not going to
be a lot of wind and a little bit of that. I guess filtered
light would be the proper way to say it. But chosolutely right. If
you sit them out there and they go from young to that hot, hot
sun, it could be trouble for them really quickly. So not to mention
they're going to dry out very quickly as well. Exactly, So three four,
maybe even five hours if it's still nice and the sun's not crushing down
them that first day, and then you just want to keep doing that.
Remember we're starting this process at about four weeks of age, because you want
to have three to four weeks before they go out. For most people at
seven to eight weeks. I know seed packets always say six weeks. They're
never big enough. You want your plants a little bigger, so we always
say, you know, try to grow them to eight weeks. So this
is about four weeks old your seedlings are, and you're getting them out for
the first I want to say, what three to five days, maybe even
the first week. Just a little bit longer each day. Yeah, I
just want to do a progression every single day, just a little bit longer.
However, if you run into a very cold day, all of a
sudden, there's a cold snap, like we're gonna get snow tonight, you
know, we don't want to put them outside. Yeah, And that's a
great topic that people always ask us questions, like, well, if I've
been giving my plants outside outside, outside, do I have to bring them
right in and shove them under the lights to day. I don't do that
if your plants are getting big, especially late in the process. We've had
moments before where we've had that cold snap at the middle of May and we've
brought our plants back indoors, sat them in natural light. They're not going
to grow like they were when they were seedlings and grow to the light for
what two three days, never had our lights back on them, and they're
going to be fine. They can't go weeks like that, but you're okay
to bring them back inside. You do not want to try to cover them
up outside. Get them back indoors if that's happening, especially in that first
week, right, absolutely, that'll help protect them and then you can get
them back out again here, you know, when the weather breaks again.
Yeah, So as as each day goes by and as the weather allows,
you know, let them out a little more and a little more, and
you know you want to keep letting them grow. You're going to see in
that first week once they hit the outdoor air, it is unbelievable how much
they will start to take off. You don't really want to get them a
natural rain that first week. You know, you stole them protected because they
can really beat them down when they're young like that. But just getting them
out it's going to really help. And then you know, that's kind of
leads to our question of the week, which we should probably get you right
now and then take a break. Why don't we ask the question and then
when we come back from the break, we'll answer it. That sounds great.
So this week's question comes from Stacy from Toronto, Canada. I always
struggle with where to put my plants to harden them off. How can I
get them outside to get sunlight without getting them when whipped? All right,
that's a great, great question, Stacy, And when we come back from
our break, we'll answer that and finish up our topic on how to harden
off plants. Okay, we are back and we are answering the question of
the week, which was Stacy from Toronto, Canada, and she asked again,
you know, I always struggle with where to put my plants to harden
them off, and how can I get them outside to get sunlight without getting
them win whipped. And this is probably the single biggest issue for plants,
and we mentioned it earlier, is the wind early on because these plants their
stems, their main stems, they're just not strong. No, they're not,
and they can break off very quickly and really damage the plants. Yeah,
and they haven't been used to any type of wind activity at all,
so they're just frail. And so it's a great question. Those first week
we talked about, you know, you put them in a protected area on
a porch. They're getting some natural light. But now it's time. Now
it's time to get them out and get them some real sunlight. Maybe not
you know, twenty four seven yet, but a lot more. But you
can't just sit them out in the yard. And this is where people make
that crucial mistake. There are a lot of things you can do. We
do something homemade, and I know you're going to talk about that in a
second, but you can get creative. You know, you can turn a
patio table on its side and put them on the on the wind side so
they're not going to get the direct wind before. Yeah, we have done
that before. Make sure it's a strong patio table. I won't go into
details, but if it's not, it could fall on your plants and crush
them. But you can use anything, buckets, anything in front just to
kind of block that wind a little bit, to surround your plants from getting
that massive quick wind. For us, I know, our key is we
just took some boards. Mare you can kind of describe what we did,
but it really works well. Right. It's just basically we took four one
by twelve inch boards and we screwed them together. Basically, basically making a
rectangle shape. And then what we did we screwed them together. Then we
put all of our flats of vegetables, our flowers, We put them down
inside on the patio, and that one by twelve rectangle protected from them getting
wind whipped, but allowed the sunlight to come in and so they got a
little bit of wind, but they were protected from those harsh, harsh winds.
Yeah. And you know one other thing that really makes that a positive
is you have this ready built in covering device. If you start to keep
your plants out longer and longer and you're gonna get that cold night in there
later and it's not going to get super cold, you can throw a sheet
over that one by twelve and you know, put a couple of rocks in
each side, and it was perfect for kind of protecting them. Yeah.
And it's a lot easier to do that than try and to move them back
inside every time, especially when they're getting larger and larger. Yeah, it
really is. I mean, and at this point, you know, once
your plants have been out into the sunlight and they've started to be it and
you're gonna have to remember to water them more often, to look at them
a little bit more. But once they start to toughen up like this,
they're gonna grow fast. They're gonna grow thicker together and like in that protective
box. We've always liked that because it's easy to water them, it's easy
to take care of them. The only time you're going to bring them in
now after you know, maybe three weeks outside or two and a half weeks,
is if you have really bad weather forecast or heavy rains. Heavy rains
can still damage them. You know, you get a heavy, heavy,
hard rain, it's going to beat those plants down. They'll get tougher and
tougher with it. But you know, we've we've we've done it before.
You know, you run outside and you forget and you see it's raining hard.
You want to get them out. But by week three we pretty much
leave ours out around the clock. I would say, unless there's something coming
right less, there's a hard freeze that we can't protect them, we'll leave
them out. And boy, you know, after the first week of them
being outside, you'll really see a change in the foliage and of the stem
growth. They start to get very big and they look like those plants that
you purchase right before at the nurseries, right before garden season. I mean,
they really really do. I mean that is the key to really getting
those plants to get going. I even like to put once they've been out
for about a week or two and they're four or five weeks old, you
know, we'll hit ours with a little bit of compost. T is one
of the waterings, and it kind of gives them that extra balance of nutrients.
Whether it's flowers or vegetable plants, it really sends them up and upward.
I mean, we've had plants that are an inch to an inch and
a half tall, like some of our Halopenia plants that grow slower. Once
we get them outdoors. It is amazing to watch how quickly they go right.
And we'll get the question often of how long or what temperature does it
need to be to keep my plans out overnight? Yeah, you know,
once they've been out for three weeks, if the forecast calls for something,
I would say anything cooler than forty five, I still like to at least
cover them at that point or get them in, because this is the thing
you can't nothing against. Whether or not you can't rely on, you can't
rely on them because I've I've woken up before when the temperature was supposed to
be forty five and I look at the thermometer and it's thirty six. And
you do you get terrified. You go out and you're checking these plants and
you're doing whatever. Now, remember if you do happen to make a mistake
and get some frost, if you can get out there early and apply water
to them and get the frost off them and get them protected, it's the
sunlight that's going to come out on that frost that kills them off. That's
a great point. Yeah, so you can, but it still stunts them.
So you know, just be I always like to err on the side
of caution with that and get them out there that way. So that's transplants,
and it doesn't matter if it's flowers. It doesn't matter if it's vegetable
plants. So let's cover the other subject Mary, when we talk about Okay,
I don't grow my own plants, but I go to a nursery and
pick my plants up. People many times think I don't have to do anything.
Well, there's a couple rules of thumb here. Again, if you're
picking them up inside a store and they're not outside at all, and they
haven't been outside, chances are they haven't been hardened off very well. Right.
And also that's a great point. But also the plants that are outdoors
and they are solved together so tightly, Yes, those are being protected because
there's so many plants around them. So those individual plants may struggle when you
first put them outside. Yeah, So what I like to tell people do
is I always feel like it's a good idea to purchase your plants a week
or two before you're ready to plant them. And people are like, well,
what you know, why am I doing that? Well, first of
all, two reasons. You get better selection. I mean, if you
really do, if you wait till the last minutes, it's the old saying,
there's not as much left there and they've been picked over. So you
can pick the best of plants and you can get them home and you can
give them that one to two weeks at that point of kind of that hardening
off process. If it's nice out, absolutely leave them out. Still protect
them. Very great point about you know, being crammed together. They're protected
from wind there. But when you bring a single flat home and you lay
it out, it's not so you have to you have to protect them,
but that extra week or two, that's the critical mistake people make of bringing
those plants home and throwing them in the ground. You know, it's that
tomato plant that's just all of a sudden by itself out in the garden getting
pounded with rain and it's not used to it, and so you have to
be really careful that you do. And if you're just buying a few plants,
not a whole flat, you know, when you're buying them in the
two cup containers or four cup containers, you just really be careful because if
you put them outside and even a small one comes by, they're going to
topple over real quick. So make sure that you support them so that they
can't fall over. And no matter what you're hardening off and getting it ready
for size really will make a difference based upon how strong the plant's going to
be. You know, if you're buying some weak transplants at a nursery because
they were half off, you're gonna want to coddle them a little bit and
get them stronger. If it's a big beefy plant that's been outside for a
little while, it's going to need a little bit less time to get ready
for it. The only exception to this role is late in the season.
You know, you get into June and the temperature rarely, if ever,
goes below fifty and most all of these plants at nurseries when they go on
clearance, where are they clearanced that they're outside? Yeah, they're outside,
and so yes, you can take those home and plant them. In fact,
you want to do that to get them out of their cramp soil by
that point. But it's really thinking back to right now that critical stage,
and I think people underestimate how much that can do for a plant. You
know, what happens early in the growing season really does dictate what's going to
happen to your plants, whether it's flowers getting lots of blooms being healthy,
or vegetable plants getting lots of produce. If a plant struggles early, it
often leads to big issues later on. For what you're looking for. We've
given a delay crop, a delay crop, and a reduction in the crop.
I mean, we've had plants before. I still remember we had six
tometo plants. You know what we're human. We left them out and we
shouldn't have, and it got cold. They didn't frost, but they were
never the same. No, they definitely got stunned and it took almost all
summer for them to recover, and even our yield that year was a little
bit lower than what we usually had. It is so just air on the
side of caution, get those plants ready, harden them off, and it's
really not a scary process. You really can't go wrong. Just just don't
leave them unprotected, give them a little bit more each day, a little
bit more of a leash, and when it gets warmer, you're you're ready
to roll, and your plans will be ready to roll as well. I
think that pretty much covers it for today. Yes, it's it's it's exciting,
can you say it. It's so exciting garden seasons here? I know,
and we are, and you know we're gonna have a lot more topics
on the garden in the coming weeks, and on flowers and hanging baskets and
everything. And we get excited about it too the closer it gets. So
I guess it's that time. Mary. Remember whatever you do, find the
fun and gardening and grow something beautiful. Until next week, everyone happy gardening.
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