Most people are probably not thinking about their summer gardens yet. If you only get a short growing season sprouting your seeds and transplanting seedlings is a great way to get a head start.
If you missed the post on sprouting your seedlings, and which seeds to start this early, check it out here! Once all the seeds have sprouted, it is time to transplant them! This can be done in just a few simple steps:
Gather Necessary Supplies
- Small Paper Cups (I use the 3 oz Dixie bath cups)
- Bowl for mixing soil
- Sharpie for labeling cups
- Soil (You want something lighter than regular potting soil. I use a 50/50 mix of Peat Moss and Vermiculite.)
- Tray to keep your seedlings on
Prepare Cups
- Poke holes in the bottom of each cup for drainage
- Pour the 50/50 Peat Moss and Vermiculite mix into a bowl and stir in lukewarm water until all soil is moist
- Label cups with seedling name
- Fill bottom 1/4 of each cup with soil mixture
Prepare Seedlings
- Remove plate from the Ziploc bag
- Gently peel back paper towel. Now you can easily see which seeds have and have not sprouted. If I can tell at this point that the seed MAY sprout at some future date, I just drop it in a cup with one of the other seedlings, just in case it does decide to sprout
(The seed in the middle may still sprout, so I dropped it in with an already sprouted seedling.)
- Tear paper towel away from seedling and root. Be especially careful not to break the root or the stem. The plant will not survive
(Here is a seedling that had 2 problems: 1) I let it grow too long, so it was really hard to transplant 2) when putting it in the cup, the stem snapped.)
- Place seedling in the bottom of your dixie cup
- Carefully cover seedling with the moist soil mixture, leaving room in the cup to gradually add more soil
Plant and Continue to Care for Seedlings
- Place seedlings in a warm sunny area
- As soon as they start poking up out of the soil, I either cover them with a little more soil, or move them under a grow light (more on that next week)
How do you transplant seedlings?
