>Next: Starting Plants Indoors
Planting Starts Instead of Seeds
Plant nursery-grown starts and home-grown transplants you grew yourself into the soil of your home vegetable garden or into containers:
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- Recognizing healthy transplants.
- When to plant starts and seedlings.
- Plant promptly before starts become stunted.
- How weather conditions needed for early starts differs from garden-store plant stock.
- Where to begin?
Transplant Basics
Unless you sow seed in indoor flats or directly into garden soil, you’ll grow or buy vegetable plant starts and transplant them into your home vegetable garden’s beds and planters [See: Starting Plants Indoors].
The best time to plant starts is during the time while these seedlings are still young. They should have grown several true leaves above their first seed leaves and—if the plants will have branching forms as adults—have begun to develop their characteristic shape.
Plants left too long in their start containers may develop crowded roots. Others become stunted or even develop flowers and fruit before they would normally. They rarely recover after planting and seldom grow or produce as they would have if they had been transplanted sooner.
Also consider garden conditions.
Watch how far the season has advanced and note the outdoor weather for your plants. Wait to transplant until the soil has warmed. It should be at least 50°F (10°C) for most cool-season vegetables and 60°F (16°C) or higher for warm-season vegetables.
If weather conditions are marginal but the starts are maturing, plant them into the garden soil and give them adequate protection from chills or frosts [see Early Starts for Vegetables].
Follow the tips and the several different step-by-step transplanting demonstrations found in this section. You’ll learn the best ways to transplant vegetable plant starts into your home vegetable garden’s beds and planters.
Choosing Healthy Transplants
Most plant nurseries and garden centers stock several different sizes of transplants ready for your garden. For large plantings, there are bedding trays of 16–24 or more seedlings, each in a separate cell or container. They also provide single-, 4-, and 6-pack plants for smaller applications, including planting into containers.
Paper, peat, soil, and coconut coir fiber are often used to produce small containers that naturally decompose, avoiding the need to disturb a seedling’s roots by removing it from its rearing container.
Transplant Health
Quality nurseries and garden centers usually inspect their stock on arrival and daily thereafter to assure plant health. Avoid shopworn, damaged, broken, or wilted vegetables starts.
For vegetable starts in individual containers, note that they are free of weeds and obvious pests—aphids, whiteflies, spider mites, or ants—or plant diseases. Their foliage should be vibrant green.
Avoid any plants that are beginning to grow roots through the holes in the bottoms of their containers. Such plants may be root bound and stunted. Once growth slows in a young plant, it seldom fully recovers.
Also avoid plants that are tall and leggy, a sign that they did not receive sufficient light following germination.
Remember that all nursery-grown transplants were reared with tender care in near-perfect conditions. Before you move them to your garden, take time to harden them for a few days [See: Hardening Transplants].
Bring them outdoors into a shaded spot with lots of light during the day, and cover them or move them indoors during cool night hours.
This process helps them adjust to the conditions of your garden before planting.