Hardening-off Plants is Important!

This is your friendly reminder about the importance of hardening-off plants before setting them out in your garden. It only applies to plants you started indoors from seed or any plants that have never been exposed to “real” sunlight.

Why is hardening-off plants so important? Well, if you think about it, the amount of light you provided your newly-started seedlings with is a great deal different from the light the sun gives off. Also, our homes are pretty comfortable in the temperature department.

If you take your little seedlings outside and plant them directly in the garden, they will get sunburned. But the sunburn they get is far more serious than what happens to the average human when they’re out in the sun for a while.

The leaves will turn a sickly white color and the plants will either die or struggle terribly.

Wondering how to acclimate your seedlings to the intensity of the sun and outdoor temperatures?

Hardening-off steps

Do the following for one week:

Day 1: take them outdoors to an area with filtered sunlight and leave them there for one hour. Move them back inside.

Day 2: take them outdoors for 2 hours, then bring them back inside.

Day 3: take them out for 3 hours, bring them inside.

Days 4-7: increase the amount of time (plus intensity of sunlight) by one hour each day. By the end of the week, they are ready to stay outdoors full-time.

And trust me, your plants will thank you for this extra little bit of TLC! After all, you’ve been giving them lots of care since they germinated, so why jeopardize it by moving them outside before hardening-off them off? That is all.