Its Time to Toughen Up! Mastering the Hardening Off Process

Welcome to our latest podcast episode where we dive deep into the essential practice of hardening off your vegetable plants before transplanting them into your garden. Join us as we explore the ins and outs of this crucial step in the gardening process.

In this episode, we'll discuss why itcan be helpful to start the hardening-off process early and how taking a few weeks to gradually acclimate your plants can lead to healthier, more resilient crops. It can also be more efficient if you work or have a busy schedule. There is also the benefit of doing so in a relaxed, non-stressful manner. We understand that life can get busy, so we'll also share tips on how to fit the hardening off schedule into even the most hectic of routines.

Whether you're a seasoned gardener or just starting, this podcast is packed with valuable insights to help you successfully navigate the hardening off process and set your vegetable garden up for success. Tune in and get ready to elevate your gardening game!

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Transcript

Hello, Sherva. Karen, hi. How are you? I'm good. How are you on this Monday morning? I'm good. I'm waiting for this. This is the Monday of the solar eclipse. I'm geeking out and I got my special glasses from the library. 

Do you have special glasses? What time is it supposed to be? Chris was just telling me about two o 'clock. Oh! I thought it was something that happens at night. Nope. No. A solar eclipse of the sun or the total eclipse of the sun or whatever eclipse, so the moon travels over the sun so it's going to be during the day. 

Okay, so you see, I don't know anything about that stuff. Yeah, I guess I'm not that excited about it like everyone else. Huh, can you see it without the glasses? No, you shouldn't look at it because it ruins your eyes. 

I don't know all the science of it, but... Oh, wow. Yep. Huh. You can look at it through a camera. Will it kill my plants? No, no, no. No, it's like, I don't know, like 10 minutes, so. Oh, wow. Yeah, other than if it kills your plants, you'll care about it, right? 

I will, yeah. I bloody will. Today, I, you know, I'm so done with having plants inside and hardening, not hardening off, but the, you know, the lighting and the heat pads. I had plants in every room. 

I had ceilings and bathrooms and the weather for the next 10 days is going to be upper sixties and seventies. The lows is going to be in the upper forties and fifties overnight, so I took a risk and I put every everything outside. 

It's a big risk, but I mean, I don't know. I think I feel like they're going to be fine. I think I'm going to cover them up at night. I think at night I'm going to throw a plastic shower curtain, a clear, I have several I bought at the dollar store and they're clear. 

So I'm thinking I'm going to throw plastic over them, over the big rack and a blanket. And that's going to be plenty warm enough, I think. For the beginning, yeah, for the beginning. And then it's only going to get warmer. 

So you have them on a rack. Describe that. Actually, it's, I'm well known at my wine store, my local wine store. And last year or the year before, he had a couple of those and they had the decent racks. 

They're really, display racks that they would display bottles of wine on. So he was throwing them out and they're collapsible. He had them outside with a sign on them. He had four of them and it said $5 each. 

So I said to Rashad, hey, Rashad, I'll take a couple of those. And he said, for you, you can have them for free because you're buying them wine. So I was like, oh, I only want, I'll just take two of them. 

And now I'm thinking I should have probably taken the four. But, and he load them up in my car for me. It has four shelves. It's probably about five feet tall. And yes, about my height, maybe, yeah, it's five feet a little over maybe tall. 

It has four racks and it fits, you know, like the large foil pans, like if you roast in a turkey, it fits a two gallon pan. It fits those size, it fits perfectly in each slot. So, and it came with four racks. 

So, I mean, I still, I have a couple of racks, one of my trashcan and another one on, because actually this, I have two, I have the other one upstairs that I, one was always outside. I kept one outside from last year and one of them was inside. 

So actually I could bring that second one downstairs and then they would all be on just two racks. And that's what I'm gonna keep them until they go on the ground. And where did you put them in your yard? 

It's a shady place. Yeah, it's on my deck, it's on my deck and it's up by the house and it has a little, a small cover that you don't get full sun in that spot. So it's shady. Today's kind of cloudy, although it's warm, it's kind of cloudy. 

So yeah, I, that's gonna save me hardening off that in and out, in and out. I read a while ago that if your seedlings are small enough, you don't have to bother taking them in and out because they really isn't, they're not established enough to be hardened off. 

They haven't, you know, they haven't grown enough. And then there was some that I started some new. ones because I just discovered hanging basket tomatoes. So there's some I just started. So those I have in the full sun