Spring Garden Tips : smells like sun and spring - hardening off plants

The dog came inside from a nice long sleep on the deck in the sun.  He was warm to the touch and it felt like there was an electric charge to his fur.  He had the happiest smile upon his face.   He smelled of sunshine and spring.

Spring has finally starting to show it's face here in Missouri.  For those of us that garden is a big sign to start getting things ready.   For me the preparation began a few weeks ago.  I started my garden starts indoors.  The trays are full of tomatoes, peppers, herbs, flowers and other assorted plants growing in the south facing window of the kitchen sliding glass doors.  

As the plants grow, on warm days, I will take them outside to harden off.  When I first started growing plants starts I had no idea what hardening off was.  Is it like tough love for plants? What exactly needs to be hard here, hard water?

When you get plants at a nursery or a garden store they are often sitting on racks or platforms outside.  The wind is blowing through the plants, the sun is shining upon them. Their soil has the opportunity to dry out and get wet at different times.   These are hardened off plants.  They are ready for the real life of living in the soil in someone's garden.   

So when we start plants indoors from seed, we need to get to this hardened off plant some how. While I don't intentionally use this method, I once knew this amazing farmer dude who grew the best pepper plants.  I used to get my plants from him each year at the Columbia Mo Farmers Market.  He was a retired Navy man and we connected once on a trip I was to take to Norfolk.  He had been stationed there many years earlier during his Navy service.  I picked him up a little magnet with the ships on it and he was over the moon.  I digress.  

So he grew these fantastic hardened off plants with strong stems. They were really thick and stocky plants.  He told me his secret was that he pumped music into his green houses for hours each day.  The sound waves would make micro abrasions in the stems that would cause the plants to grow incredibly strong stocks.   While we often have music playing in the house.  I wonder what my 11 year old's trombone practice must be doing to the poor dears.  

As the plants grow I try to get them out in the sun and wind. You really have to be careful with the wind.  The little plants can get hurt really easily.  I try to go for days with less wind and even make a wind barrier if possible to block the area of the porch with the trays.  I have used those shelving units with the plastic covers and usually end up ditching the plastic covers.   It gets too hot in there for most starts.   

The trick seems to be limiting the amount of total time the plants go on these excursions to the porch.  Slowly building up over time as we get closer and closer to putting them into the garden.  As we approach the end of April, I may even leave them out over night on a few nice nights to get them ready for the cooler ground temperatures.  

When the plants are well hardened, they go through less transplant shock.  Have you ever put plants in the grown and watched as they did absolutely nothing for a few days, even looking worse off as the days go on.  Eventually the plant come back and takes off and does it's thing.  However, during that time you feel this deflation.  Well that is transplant shock.   If your plants are well prepared you will have a shorter adjustment period.  So take advantage of the good days to get your starts ready for their permanent homes.