Re=potting: It’s not rocket science!

Now we get to the final touches. Let’s say you’ve started some seeds and they’ve began to sprout outside of the soil. You want to make sure that you are not allowing your plant to get root bound. A plant gets root bound when the roots no longer have room to expand. They get coiled within each other. This can actually cause the plant to struggle. So you wanna watch the roots of the plants by checking the bottoms of your plant containers. My personal rule is that when I see the roots showing up at the bottom of the container through the hole of the pot, I know it’s time to plant up. Planting up also gives your plant the space to freely continue expanding both root-wise and body-wise.

I personally go up in pot size 3 to 4 times before it goes into the actual garden. This always depends on how quickly the plant grows.

The point is, we never wanna limit our plant. If we force them to stay in a small environment, then when we move them to the garden, they may just continue to stay in that small environment. Not growing much because they were bound. 

The most important part about getting your plants into the garden is hardening them off. I have struggled in this field in my past.

How to properly harden off your plants:

My first year of starting seeds I did not realize what a process hardening plants off was.

Typically what people do is they start with one hour the first day. Then they add another hour the second day. Then on the third day they add another hour, and so on and so forth. Gradually adding time so that way within a 7-10 day period the plants are ready to fully be outside. This means that at some point the plant will get to the 8-10 hour window. Then they’re spending the night outside for the first time. Every person does this differently. I’ve tried the week-long method. But as of late, I’ve expanded it to 10 days just to be safe.

What should the weather look like?

Another thing to know is that you do not want to expose your plans to vigorous weather.

My first year of starting seeds, I exposed these plants to very windy weather when I was trying to harden them off. I didn’t understand how much you want the outdoor experience to mimic the indoor state they had. It stunted almost all of the seedlings that I started that year. Because of this, I bought most of my plants from the nursery that year. If it is windy outside, I do not recommend hardening your seeds off. You need to wait. I’m not talking about a slight breeze. Here where I’m at in Missouri, there are really windy days sometimes coupled with storms. I have to wait through those weeks in order to save my seedlings. Otherwise all of those weeks of starting plants feel wasted. You want to slowly help them transition to the outside world. They’ve only been used to being inside a greenhouse or home up until that point. They haven’t experienced much airflow or actual sunshine. Make their transition as smooth as you can. And they will bless you with the outcome of abundance in the harvests to come if you do so. 

The most important tip of all

Another tip I’ve found imperative is to always return your plants to their previous state after being outside. If you had those plants under grow lights right before placing them outside for that first hour or so, bring them right back to that place. They don’t go on your kitchen floor. They go right back into the environment they’ve been used to. If you don’t, you’ll stress the plant too much. This shock can and most likely will effect how productive they’ll be for you. Once they’ve stayed the night outside, you no longer need to bring them back to their environment. They’ve finished their transition to the outside.

Next, you want to start your plants off outside when the sun isn’t beaming. Because they aren’t used to the sun, you want to be as gradual as possible. Start earlier in the morning so that they can start in the cool of the day. Rather than when the sun is beaming. So they don’t get scorched; it’s their first time out.

Here’s the thing, you make the rules. Do your best. And as time goes on, you’ll figure out what works for you! Here’s an example schedule to transition your plants in a 10 day period. Try it out, or modify it to work best for you!

Here’s an example schedule for you that you can download: