Taking care of seedlings
I have a lot of seedlings coming up in my greenhouse, ready for warmer weather. Not all plants do well growing from seed. I have never had any luck growing cucumbers or watermelon. Some people tell me that this is true of cantaloupe too. They either die off or won’t transplant.
My tomatoes are looking good right now. I’m waiting for the second set of true leaves to separate them. Seedlings need to be thinned so they can grow. If you have a lot of them too close together, none of them will survive.
There should only be one plant per pot so they can get strong and be ready to go outside. I hate to kill any of them so I always make sure there is someplace else to put the leftover seedlings. This means a lot of little cups and pots.
Use good quality soil and give them plenty of sun, water sparingly—don’t drown them. Most seeds start popping up in a few weeks.
To transplant your seedlings, fill containers with pre-moistened planting mix. Loosen the soil around the seedlings before you try to move them. I use a fork for this. Try to take them out one at a time. If you find their roots are too intertwined, lift up a clump and gently pull their roots apart.
Be very careful handling the seedlings. They are as fragile as they appear and will bruise easily. Push a hole into the soil—don’t just shove them in there. Keep the seedlings out of the sun for a few days until they recover from transplant.
You will lose a few seedlings before and after transplanting. It seems to be inevitable. Sometimes the seeds are no good or they can rot while growing. Some seedlings can’t survive transplanting.
Taking them outside for a few hours each day is supposed to help the transplanting process when you finally move them outside. I can’t really tell a big difference but I don’t put the little plants outside until the cold weather is gone for good, usually May 1. April can still be a tough month (remember that hard freeze we had a few years ago?).
There is a certain joy that follows seeing those little seeds shoot up out of the ground that just isn’t there when you buy the plant pre-grown from the store. Give it a try even if you can only start a few seeds. You’ll probably like it too!
Cutline:
These little tomato seedlings aren’t ready to thin of plant yet. They are just getting started. But it won’t be long before they will be ready to transplant. I don’t know about you, but I’m looking forward to summer when they have those big red tomatoes on them!
Photo and story by Joyce Lavene
