How to Harden Off Tomato and Flower Starts

It’s almost May. Our garden beds are ready and the weather is warming up.  Before you actually plant, it’s important to take your time when it comes to moving your new seedlings to the great outdoors. This applies whether you grew your own vegetables and flowers from seed or bought them from our greenhouse. Moving your plants from the house or greenhouse directly into the garden without giving them time to adjust will mean you’ll lose most, if not all of them. At the very least, you’ll set the plants back weeks due to transplant shock. This slow transition from indoors to the outside is called “hardening off”. Hardening off plants gradually exposes them to outdoor light, wind and temperatures. The process is easy, but it takes time. In fact, you should plan on a week or so to get your immature plants ready to transplant into the garden. 

On the first day, pick a sheltered, shady spot under a tree or on the patio and leave them there for 3 or 4 hours. Bring them in that night. The second day, leave them out 5 or 6 hours, the third day 6 or 7 hours. On the fourth day, set your plants in a place where they will receive morning sun. Morning sun is not as harsh as afternoon sun. This will help your plants adjust to direct sunlight. Gradually increase sunlight exposure over the next few days. After 7 or 8 days, your plants should be ready for the outdoors. Even then, you'll want to keep an eye on the forecast. The average last day of frost is May 10, but this can vary greatly. Be prepared to bring your plants back in if the night time temperatures fall.

N-sulate is a frost blanket that will help protect your plants at night. If plants are small enough, throw a box or bucket over them to keep the frost off. Make sure you keep your plants watered during this hardening off process. Being outside means they will dry out faster, so keep an eye on the watering. Finally, when you’re ready to plant, pick a cloudy day. This will help your plants make the transition from container to the garden even easier.   

Worm Composting Basics  

  

Worm composting involves using worms to recycle food scraps into rich garden soil amendments called vermicompost or worm compost. Composting with worms offers many advantages. Done right, vermicomposting is clean, doesn't smell, doesn't take up a lot of space and doesn't cost a lot of money to get started. Begin by selecting a container to hold your worms. 

You can purchase a commercially-made worm composter or make one yourself, using an opaque bin with a lid, such as this 5-gallon storage tote. Prepare the container by drilling a series of holes in the sides, bottom and the lid. This will allow the bin to "breathe" and drain properly. 

Next, add three to four inches of bedding. Shredded newspaper is a good choice. Once shredded, soak the newspaper in water, then wring it out. The bedding should be as wet as a damp sponge. Add a cup of compost or garden soil to the bed. This helps the worms digestive process. 

Now you're ready to add your composting worms. Buy red wiggler worms: Eisenia foetida. Red wigglers can eat about half of their weight in food every day. This means if you start with a pound of worms, you'll be able to feed them one half of a pound of food scraps every day.  As your worms settle in to their new home, they will begin to reproduce and build up the worm population. Red wiggler worm eggs (called cocoons) are smaller than a grain of rice and can be difficult to spot in your bin.  It takes about 23 days for a cocoon to hatch. 

The newly hatched worms resemble white threads, but even at this stage, they're ready to go to work. Start by burying some food scraps in the bedding. Your worms will eat a variety of food, including fruit and vegetable peels, coffee grounds, egg shells and tea bags. They love melon rinds! Avoid meat or dairy products. Place your worm bin in a warm spot out of direct sunlight. Put the container inside of a tray or pan to catch any liquids that might drain out. Check on your worm bin daily. If you catch the worms trying to escape, it means the bedding is to wet. Cut down on the food and crack the lid to let more air in. In a short time, your worms will have transformed leftover table scraps into rich compost, which you can use to enrich and improve your garden soil.