When to transplant spring seedlings
I'm extremely picky about
transplanting weather at this time of year. Sure, I prefer to pick an
overcast day with rain on the horizon, but I also aim for a day when
there will be no frosts for at least a week. The cabbage I set out a few
weeks ago and the broccoli and onions I transplanted Monday can all
handle light freezes once they're established but transplant stress +
freeze = unhappy seedlings. Thus waiting until the perfect day comes around, even if it doesn't match the planting date on my calendar.
Of course, with our
variable weather, I'm pretty much guaranteed to still have to cover our
transplants (and early sprouters like peas) with row-cover fabric a time
or two before our frost-free date. After all, even established cabbages
can be damaged by freezes below about 25 degrees (aka killing frosts).
But it's worth that inevitable babying to get the jumpstart on the
season since early broccoli and cabbages have much less pressure from cabbageworms, while early peas produce more fruits before hot weather makes the vines unhappy.
As usual, gardening is a
balancing act between planting too late and too early. Maybe that
endless puzzle is why I stay entertained with growing the same
vegetables year after year...or maybe it's just the delicious flavor of
homegrown food that makes the weeding worthwhile.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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