Transplanting

I waited a few days to blog about transplanting because I wanted to see how my seedlings would take. I learned a few things, which I’ll share here:

In some cases, I transplanted too early. While these radishes actually ended up transplanting fine, you can see how tiny they are next to the tomato plant that itself is small, with its first flowers just forming. I think in the future I’ll transplant into 4-inch pots and make sure seedlings are much larger and hardier before I put them in the garden.

Radish seedlings look tiny compared to this young tomato plant. (By the way, this is our volunteer tomato plant, which continues to grow and should bear its first batch of tomatoes soon!)

Critters really enjoy tender greens. I’m not sure what got to my seedlings, but some ate the seedlings right from the trays, before I even transplanted them (don’t worry–most of my seedlings are still safe, nestled on tables on my home office porch). Rat and mouse traps will be making an appearance in the garden very soon. From my experience, squirrels would have done more damage.

I forgot to drench the soil BEFORE I planted seedlings. I remembered this key tip halfway through the process, but that was too late for my tokyo onions. When I watered these, the water didn’t drain instantly. Instead, it came pouring down and mixed with soil, forming a massive mudslide and pushing the long thin onion strands down. I carefully propped them back up and spent a good chunk of time carefully watering and then waiting for water to drain before doing it again, about 5-6 more times. On the other side of the bed, I watered thoroughly before planting and could then just drop in my cabbage transplants.

I opted to plant these baby bok choy in a large pot (actually a big wide bucket typically used for holding ice and beverages at BBQs). They are currently on the porch behind my home office to protect them from greedy little mice and rats.

Some seedlings grow roots very quickly, so I was glad that I transplanted these snow peas. They are doing well in the garden. Critters have chewed on some but don’t seem to like them enough to eat all of them.

For snow peas I use tripod structures I created from bamboo. I typically plant three seedlings per pole and let them climb.
A few days later, the snow peas have settled in nicely, though they have suffered a few nibbles (check out the plant on the left side of the photo and see if you can spot the nibbles).

I’ve ordered 60 4-inch pots so that I can move seedlings to these bigger pots and let them grow a little more before planting in the garden. How is your transplanting going? Do you have any tips to share?