Toughen Up Your Plant Starts

You have your plant starts - frost tender plants like tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, squash, cucumber.  Now what?  Depending on where and when you got them you need to "harden" them off.  This means they need gradual exposure to sun, wind and night time temperatures.  Ideally, you would put them out for an hour on Day One and then add an hour each day.  However, some days are cloudy, some are rainy and windy and sometimes you are not home all day.  If you are not home during the day to put your plants out for a short period of time we recommend you buy plant starts that have been hardened off to sun.  

For night time, we generally recommend you keep plants in a protected space against a wall and bring into your home if the night time temperature is expected to drop below 6 degrees.

It is good to give your plants some exposure to wind too as the plant will strengthen to withstand the movement.

Once night time temperatures in the forecast are above 6 degrees (above 4 degrees for plants being planted under cover like a greenhouse), hardened off plants are ready to be planted!

At Sayward Haven Farm we grow our plant starts so they are hardened off to light.  Depending on when you get them they may still need to be exposed to direct light and wind for a couple of days and night time temperatures should be monitored.  

All our plant starts have been fed with a seaweed emulsion and are ready to go into well prepared soil with fertilizer (fish fertilizer is a great option in our region).