Now that you have nurtured your baby seedlings indoors. It’s time to get them ready to plant outdoors. It takes a good week or two to give them time to harden off.
Why It Is So Important To Harden Off Seedlings
After a few weeks of ideal temperatures and conditions of growing indoors, Your seedlings are still at a very tender stage. They need time to adapt to the big outdoors.
If you were to plant your seedlings directly from your indoor growing area straight to the garden, You would be going to the nursery to buy transplants. It will be a shock to their system and they likely won’t survive.
They need to have time to adapt to the elements of the weather. The sun, the wind, the cooler night time temperatures. Just like children, your seedlings need time to mature before you send them out the door to face the world.
How To Do This Successfully
Hardening off your vegetable seedlings is really very simple. It just takes a week or two of patience.
Stop watering for several days to a week before you’re ready to start the process.
About a week or two before you want to plant them outside, and after your last frost date, start by taking your plants outside in a sheltered area for about an hour the first day.
Increase this time gradually over the week and by the 3rd or 4th day start leaving them out over night.
I initially put mine on my front porch which is on the east side of my house. It’s sheltered enough that the wind can’t get to them too much and the afternoon sun can’t scorch them.
After 3 or 4 days I leave them out over night. Then after couple of nights on the front porch, I move them around to a sunnier area.
Then to an area less sheltered from the wind.
Typically, I take a minimum of 2 weeks to harden my plants just because where I live tends to be a little windier than in the city. That way, when I plant them in the garden I feel pretty confident that the wind won’t be too much for them.
I also stake things like tomatoes and even my pepper plants fairly quickly to avoid having them break off in a storm.
When To Start The Process
I live in a zone 5 area and used to plant my transplants in early to mid May but with the changing weather patterns, I now wait till closer to June.
According to the University of Illinois Extension, the approximate last frost date is April 25. However, I can tell you that’s too early to plant those tropical loving plants outdoors where I live. Tomatoes and peppers like it warm.
So I have only just begun the process of hardening off my seedlings. At this point, after spending all these weeks nurturing them in my basement under grow lights, I don’t want to mess it up now.
Once your plants are ready to be planted, it is recommended that you do it on a cloudy day. I don’t know about you, but with my busy schedule, I do it when I have a chance. If it isn’t cloudy just wait till later in the day when the sun isn’t at its hottest.
Then water them well. If you wait till later in the day to plant, just be sure you don’t get the leaves too soaking wet. Just water in the hole before you fill it in and then on top the ground. Watering plants in the evening when the leaves don’t have adequate time to dry off can encourage diseases.
These babies are still under the grow lights. They were planted a little later than the others and still need a little more time to grow.
Now you’re ready to reap the rewards of watching your plants grow up and produce some amazing little treasures! There’s nothing like a homegrown anything! It’s fresher, the flavor is better, and you have the satisfaction of knowing you are capable of providing your family with the best and healthiest food possible. Good bye waxy pale grocery store tomatoes!
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