TRANSPLANTING AND DIRECT SEEDING

As mentioned in earlier sections, the easiest way to garden would be to let the plants, pollinators, soil organisms, and other forces of nature do the work on their own, with us simply harvesting what grows. Next easiest would be to scatter a few seeds. More effort still is preparing beds for seeds to grow in. The process of sowing, pricking out, and then transplanting vegetable starts from trays and containers into prepared beds is quite a few steps down the path toward complexity, and a precipitous fall from an unmanipulated Garden of Eden or the fabled work-free Permaculture garden. Why, then, would be choose to engage in all these steps?

The simple answer is that if easier methods worked just as well, and ended up saving work in the long run while yielding at least equal results, we would certainly choose them. But, as usual, there are reasons behind the methods in our madness. These include:

1. Weather. As explained in the Gardening Year [0] section, some warm-weather crops, like tomatoes and peppers, need a head-start in order to yield significant amounts of fruit in our climate. By the time the soil is warm enough for them to sprout in garden beds without being in danger of being killed by a spring frost, they don’t have enough time to grow into large plants and ripen many fruits before frost arrives again to kill them. (Self-sown cherry tomato plants seem to be the only exception to this rule; they will occasionally yield quantities of fruit, even though they haven’t had an early sowing.)

Weather can also be rough on plants even if it doesn’t kill them outright through freezing. Starting seeds in containers that can be moved in and out of greenhouses and other covered, controlled environments allows us to regulate soil and air temperature (which affect germination and growth) and also soil and seed moisture (preventing the flooding that could come from spring rains). It also gives the capacity to more easily protect starts from other weather extremes such as high winds, snow, hail, and the like.

Weather determines when uncovered garden beds can be prepared, often making them too wet to cultivate early in the spring. Multi-staged transplanting techniques allow us to delay the time when bed preparation is required, since the young plants are growing in containers for at least the first few weeks of their lives, and often longer.

2. Slugs. Slugs, as well as snails and some other pests, love to feast on young plants. By concentrating our vegetable starts in a smaller area whose environment we can monitor and control more easily, we can grow them past the stages in which they are most vulnerable to slug predation. We can also keep the small plants out of the garden during its wettest state in the early spring, when slugs are most active because of the many wet surfaces over which they can easily crawl. If you haven’t already, see HERE COME THE SLUGS [0] for a musical treatment of this phenomenon.

3. Weeds. Weeds which germinate at the same time as our crop plants are very likely to overtake those same plants, because most plants we consider “weeds” are by nature opportunistic and aggressive, while most of our crop plants need more coddling to thrive. Sowing, then pricking out, then transplanting a vegetable start gives it three chances to be the “dominant” plant—and it gets a better advantage each time. A good-sized vegetable start plopped into a just-weeded or cleared bed is already well on its way to shading out any small seeds that may germinate under it, and will be larger than any possible weed competitors for at least a while. But when sticking a vegetable seed directly into that same bed, the gardener signs a pretty specific contract: “I will weed this bed repeatedly, or I will not complain when this plant disappears because it’s been outcompeted by more aggressive weeds.”

4. Attention. Plants grown in a concentrated area, in containers no larger than what they require at that stage in their lives, can get the extra attention young plants need, much more easily than if they are spread all over the garden.

5. Space and resource efficiency. Container-growing of starts allows the most economical use, not only of the gardener’s attention, but also of physical space and resources, both in the starts-growing area and in the garden itself. Locating germinating seeds and young plants all in the same area greatly simplifies the task of watering, while conserving water. Perhaps even more important, garden beds can be used far more efficiently if they don’t need to be “turned over” to the next crop until that crop is of transplanting size. If bed space is always filled with fairly good-sized crop plants, rather than spending many weeks mostly bare or filled with weeds in between tiny crop plants, the garden will yield much more on a continuous basis. In the same time that a single bed would yield three crops of lettuce if started from seed in the bed, for example, it might yield six crops of lettuce—twice as much—with the use of transplants. In this method, water and nutrients are never wasted on barren or weed-filled space.

The process of pricking out from the seed flats in which you have sown your seeds (see Propagating Crops from Seed [0]) involves transferring small seedlings as gently as possible into larger growing cells. We typically use forks (not pitch forks or digging forks, but table forks) to uproot small clumps of sprouted seedlings. Depending how thickly they are growing in the seedflat, seedlings can be pricked out as early as the dicot-only stage (in which only their two seed leaves have unfurled) or after they have started to unfurl their first “true leaves.” Cotyledons (seed leaves) and true leaves often look radically different from one another. All members of the Brassicaceae, for example, have somewhat heart-shaped dicots, while their true leaves assume the forms we expect of kale, cabbage, or turnip leaves. Every vegetable has its own “signature” cotyledons, although there are many similarities within and even across families. In some cases, positive identification may not be possible until the first true leaves have emerged, or even later. Experience and familiarity are the best aids in identifying plants in their sprouting and seedling stages. The cotyledons of monocots more closely resemble the same plant’s true leaves; however, we don’t generally prick out monocotyledonous plants (instead, we usually transfer leeks and onions directly from broadcast-sown seedflats into garden beds, once they have sized up substantially).

After a small clump of small seedlings has been uprooted with a fork, the plants may be separated gently by jiggling the fork and/or by carefully pulling them apart by holding their cotyledons. The cotyledons are the most expendable part of the young plant, since they will eventually wither and die. Try to avoid touching roots and root hairs, since the oils from human hands can impede their function. Even stems and true leaves can be negatively affected by our handling at this stage, so as much as possible it’s best to handle the plants by the dicots only.

The plant roots need to be kept as moist as possible throughout this process, since drying out will kill them. Transfer the plant as quickly as possible into its planting cell, or (if it’s part of a group that was uprooted simultaneously) keep it wet in moist soil or with a moist “pricking out rag” until it can be placed into its cell. Fingers are often the best tools for poking holes in the center of each planting cell. The seedling is then placed in the hole and the soil brought back around its roots.

On some plants, dicots typically emerge at soil level on a germinating plant, but on others, they emerge above soil level, leaving a length of exposed stem between themselves and the soil. And on some plants, the first true leaves emerge even further up the stem than the dicots. In all cases, the optimal pricking out and transplanting depth is up to the place where the first true leaves emerge from the stem. This may involve, in the last case, burying not only part of the stem, but also the dicots. (This dicot-burying is more likely to occur when later transplanting an already-pricked-out plant into a garden bed, since pricking out generally occurs before many true leaves are present.)

It’s important to prick out into adequately-moist soil (in most of this section, the words “soil” and “transplanting/seedling mix” are being used interchangeably), and also to water in the newly pricked-out seedlings as soon as possible, to minimize trauma and to assure that the soil is settled around their roots (large air pockets will kill roots). If the soil into which the seedlings are being transferred is adequately moist, and conditions otherwise favorable, we usually wait until a tray of cells is full, and then water the entire tray—but if the plants are under stress, more immediate watering is advised. As with sprouting seedflats, watering should be done gently, with either a fine-holed “Haws”-style watering can, or with a hose attachment that does not pound the soil with very large drops. On the other hand, “mist” attachments on hoses usually do not put out enough water to thoroughly soak the soil, so given the choice, it is more important to soak the soil to be sure those roots and root hairs are in contact with soil than to be absolutely gentle with one’s watering technique. When water first flows up, then falls down upon the soil (as it does with a Haws-style can, and with a slightly upward pointed hose), it’s action on the soil is much more gentle than when a watering spout or hose is directed downward onto the soil.

To prevent overstressing the plants or allowing the briefly-exposed roots to die, pricking out should be done in the shade, and in moderate temperatures if possible. Newly pricked-out seedlings should also be kept shaded, and in moderate temperatures, for at least a day before being exposed to more sun, because their roots do not immediately become able to take up the water the plant needs to conduct and survive full transpiration. Shading newly pricked-out plants and keeping them from overly-hot environments slows down their metabolism long enough for their roots to get established (without bringing metabolism to a halt by over-cooling the plant, which would also impede timely rooting). Some gardeners have learned the hard way that newly pricked-out plants exposed to the sun may often not only wilt, but die, since they are unable to replace lost moisture. Even if they manage to survive, the early trauma is likely to affect their future growth, predisposing them to early bolting and sometimes bitterness even when young. (Plants are not unlike people.)

Once pricked-out plants have grown to the capacity of their new containers, with their root mass mostly filling the cell space and their leaves usually touching those of adjoining plants, they are ready to transplant into the garden itself. Depending on time of year, they can go through a hardening-off period at this time, in which they are gradually exposed to the harsher outside conditions they will face in the garden. The Beetless’ I'VE GOT A SEEDLING [0] describes this process well; it is also referenced in the Greenhouses and Season Extension Methods [0] chapter.

Transplanting into the garden involves many of the same principles and techniques as pricking out. Transplanting is best done in the shade, into soil that is adequately moist. Ideally, it is done in the evening or on a cloudy day, so that plants have time to recover before facing full sun. Transplanting holes can be made either with one’s hand or with a trowel, and seedlings are optimally transplanted up to the level of their first true leaves. (Tomatoes are “adventitious rooters”—i.e., can root off their stems—so may be planted even deeper if desired.) Minimizing contact between hands and roots, so as to keep oils on our skin from damaging them, is still optimal. Immediate watering-in is also ideal, although, if the soil is adequately wet, the soil blocks on the transplants adequately wet, and other conditions favorable, it is generally safe to wait until a block of plants has been transplanted before watering. However, even when all soil is wet, and even when a light drizzle is falling from the sky, it is still best to actually water in each plant, as this will settle soil around the roots more thoroughly and dependably than just the process of planting does, or than can be achieved through precipitation.

Direct-seeding is used instead of transplanting on certain crops. These fall into a few different categories:

1. They would be too laborious to seed, prick out, and transplant because of their planting pattern and/or density. Crops grown in blocks or lines like corn, beans, peas, and almost all root crops fall into this category. It is still possible to raise these crops as transplants, but because of the labor involved, and the dubious benefits in some of these cases, they are usually direct-sown. And cover crops, almost by definition, are always direct-sown.

2. Their roots would be damaged by transplanting. Most root crops fall into this category—they generally yield better results if they are not transplanted, but sown directly into garden beds.

3. They are sown at a time of year when danger of slug predation is relatively low. Large-seeded warm-weather crops are often sown directly without major slug depredations, not only because the large seed produces a larger, most slug-resistant plant sooner, but because slugs are less numerous once temperatures are rising and moisture levels falling. (Although we usually transplant them, squash, cucumbers, and other cucurbits are often direct-sown with great success.) Even salad and cooking greens are occasionally broadcast sown on bare ground during the less slug-infested seasons, because some are likely to survive. Thickly-sprouting patches can be thinned and used as baby greens or mesclun mix.

When direct seeding, all the principles outlined in Propagating Crops from Seed [0] apply (including those described by the Beetless in DO YOU WANT TO KNOW THE SEED DEPTH? [0], ALL YOUR SEEDS ARE LOVE [0], and YOU WON'T SEED ME [0]). Some direct-seeded plants—particularly root crops—typically require thinning for best results. Seed packets, catalogs, and gardening books generally recommend not only sowing densities, but optimal final spacings between plants. Smaller, misshapen, or simply overly dense plants are carefully removed by pulling, clipping, or pinching them at soil level (avoid pulling when it would disrupt neighboring plants). Many of these thinnings can be eaten as delicious baby vegetables, while others become compost or mulch. In either case, as the Beetless point out in THINNINGS [0], the process of thinning healthy young vegetable plants can inspire feelings of remorse and even guilt, but is more properly a source of appreciation, and is inseparable from the innumerable other cycles of death and life constantly at play in the garden.

 
(forward to Pt. 7 [0]) (back to Gardening Guide [0] index)