How To Harden Off Plants

Tomato seedlings outside being hardened off 2018

Start slowly. Put the plants outside on a partly-cloudy day the first time, with not too much wind.

Make sure they’re well-watered. Leave them out for about 20 minutes the first time, and not at noon (before 11 or after 1 is ideal.) Keep an eye on them, and if they start to get droopy, bring them back in and cut back on the time the next day to 15 minutes, or 10 if need be.

If it’s windy, put them in a cardboard box so they get light but not knocked over.

Gradually every day increase the amount of sunlight by about ten to fifteen minutes. Again, keep an eye on them, don’t let them get sunburned (it will make their leaves turn brown and fall off, so to be avoided!)

Work your way up to about four hours a day, then you can leave them out at night as long as the temps are above 40 degrees.

Once the nighttime temps are above 55 degrees, they’re ready to go in the garden. If you plant them before that they won’t do well. So being patient is worth it.

If you have them in pots for more than two weeks, give them a small amount of fertilizer, at about half the strength showing on the bottle. I like to use fish emulsion; it’s gentle but gives them nitrogen, which they need.

Best of luck! 

A New Seed Saving Technique

I learned of this seed saving technique this past summer and really like how easy it makes the process.

Sometimes, when fermenting seeds, it's easy to leave them in just a bit too long, and then they sprout, which makes them useless for saving.

Here's the way I've been saving seeds this summer (I have only done this with tomato seeds, just fyi):

Needed:
     1 pint mason jar
     1 cup measure
     Oxyclean washing powder (just the regular version.)

Directions:

• Squeeze the juice and seeds from a tomato into a one cup measure.
• If the amount is less than one cup, add water to make it one cup.
• Add 1 TBSP Oxyclean to the cup of liquid.
• Stir gently.
• Wait 30 minutes.
• After 30 minutes stir again, then rinse the seeds in a fine mesh strainer until they no longer feel slippery.
• Spread the seeds out onto a non-coated paper plate to dry and store as you normally would.

SO EASY!