How to "Harden Off" your plants

Acclimating Your Plants before planting them in your garden

WeeBee Farms takes pride in selling you plants that are ready for planting today. However, during periods of extreme weather, we need to protect the plants in the greenhouse and they may need re-acclimated to the outdoors. Or you may have kept your plants indoors or in the shade for a few days and will need to harden them off yourself before planting.
Cold weather plants (lettuce, kale, broccoli, chard, peas, etc)
Acclimating your plants to the outdoors is extremely important to their survival. Because plants usually are grown in greenhouses, they've been pampered. They need to be introduced slowly to the elements of wind and intense sun. The cold temperatures don't bother the plants as much as wind and sun.
Initially, you will put plants outdoors only for short periods of time, perhaps for an hour.  (If you see it wilting, put it back in the shade for a while). You'll want to set them in a semi-shaded area of the yard. Gradually, you will increase the time plants are kept outdoors; you also will gradually increase their exposure to sun. After 6 to 8 days, these plants will be ready for the outdoor life.
Do not cut back on watering. Plants that are in small pots dry out very quickly and need to be kept moist. Plants are also more susceptible to heat and cold in their small pots. Once in the ground, the soil will moderate the temperatures.
It's a good idea to transplant on a cloudy day or in the evening, when the plants won't get full exposure to the hot sun on their first day in the ground. Water the plants and planting hole deeply.
Hot Weather Plants  (Basil, Tomatoes, Peppers, Cucumbers, Squash, Beans)
We don't plant our tomatoes or basil out until May 31st, Peppers a week or two later. They will die at 32 degrees, and they do NOT like cold ground temperatures, especially peppers. We have been successful at growing tomatoes and peppers for 16 years. We are in Boulder County 10 miles north of Boulder. Boulderites may be able to get away with planting a week or so earlier.

(partly adapted from the CSU extension information)

Wednesday morning after the storm

I said the lettuce was hardy to about 10 degrees, especially with a good snow cover. It turns out it is reasonably hardy at 1 degree, with just an inch or two of snow! These were in an unprotected garden. Some of the outside leaves will probably die on the plants that were planted on Sunday, but it looks like the plant will grow back. I'll be checking in on these to see. I hope all the plants that were planted in Boulder fared well, too. The extra snow in Boulder should have helped insulate the plants.

Garlic poking up through the snow. We had about 2 inches of snow, and it was 1 degree above zero last night. Good thing garlic is super hardy!

Will be at market this Saturday, April 5th!

We'll have lots of cold-hardy vegetable plants. Kale, lettuce, peas, chives, onion starts and more. Also Salad bowl planters, alpine strawberry plants and organic kitty oats.
Come say hi, and get ready for Spring gardening!

Garlic poking up out of the snow. It came up on January 29th, about the usual time, but hasn't grown much because the nights have been so cold. We watered in early February and this nice little snow will help keep that moisture in!

photos from the greenhouse

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Kale, seedlings, and onion seedlings in the greenhouse.

Water your garlic!

Check your soil and if it isn't moist, it's a good time to water. If you watered deeply at planting time you could just give it a little soaking, but if not, you should water very deeply to get it through the winter. See the planting instructions October posting.

These garlics want to grow!

Every year I save some garlic to plant on Thanksgiving. The weather is usually warm and I love being outside in late November. This year I admit I planted some of my "leftover" garlic just yesterday on November 30th. I did a hot water soak for disease prevention and this sped up the root emergence. These were soaked 6 days ago and were looking ready to grow! It's ideal to have the root buds be just barely starting to show, not growing long like this at planting time, but luckily only a few had such long roots and I was able to plant them very carefully.

I dipped each clove in a special fungal powder that will help it combat the fungus "white rot" that has infected 2 of my plots, and some mycelium powder that will help the roots grow bigger and help fight off general disease. Cross your fingers that I can keep my remaining plots clean and continue to sell garlic for planting!

Garlic coming up in November

If you planted garlic in mid-October, you may have some garlic sprouts or leaves starting to show now. This happened to me last year, and has happened in other years where we have a warm Fall. "Turban" type garlics like Tzan or Shantung Purple are especially likely to come up early.
Although it is not ideal to have it coming up now, it won't affect the garlic you harvest next summer very much. Mine that came up early last year seemed to be pretty normal sized, or just a bit smaller than usual. I think the extra root growth that the garlic is developing helps compensate for the green leaves that will freeze and die back when the weather turns colder.
There isn't too much you can do about it. Just make sure your garlic doesn't dry out during this time. If you didn't do a big watering right after planting, do it in the next week. The moisture we had last weekend was nice, but the ground was very dry to start with and it will help to soak it down deep to keep it from drying out in the winter when it is often dry and windy.
Something else you may notice in the late winter is some garlic cloves showing on top of the soil, especially if you haven't mulched. This happens because of frost heaves. This, too is not something to worry about as the roots actually pull the garlic back into the ground!