Battle Hardened

Hardening off the seedling plants. We are learning so many new terms. I should write a blog just on all of the new words, phrases and terms we’ve learned during the process of becoming gardeners…but that’s for another day…

The process of hardening prepares our indoor planted seedlings to slowly adjust to the great but sometimes harsh outdoors prior to being transferred to their garden beds. Plants experience stress every time that they are moved from one container to another. The stress of being removed from mostly ideal conditions indoors to all of the different weather conditions outside is especially stressful.

The process of hardening is recommended to span over a 7 to 10 day period. On the first day, the plants should be exposed to the outdoors for one hour. Each day an additional hour should be added to their outdoor exposure until they are ready to be planted in their final destination before harvest.

Ideally the plants will be exposed to several temperatures and precipitation or sunlight conditions.

You can see 2 of our 3 raised garden beds in the background. With luck I will get them leveled, lined and filled with soil by the end of this coming weekend.

By the end of mothers day we hope to have all of these seedlings transferred and most of our seed packets that were not started inside planted as well.