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Grow Your Own Transplants
109 Plays1 year ago
Are you ready to get a head start on your spring garden? In this episode of Hort Culture, we'll discuss how to start transplants indoors for planting outdoors in the spring. You'll learn more about how to choose the right seeds, when to sow them, and what kind of light and temperature they need to thrive. We'll also share some tips and tricks for avoiding common problems like legginess, and transplant shock. Tune in and get ready to grow your own healthy and beautiful plants!
Starting Plants From Seeds at Home
Growing Your Own Transplants Expands Your Choices
Home Vegetable Gardening in Kentucky
Questions/Comments/Feedback/Suggestions for Topics: hortculturepodcast@l.uky.edu
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Hort Culture' Podcast
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to Hort Culture, where a group of extension professionals and plant people talk about the business, production, and joy of planting seeds and helping them grow. Join us as we explore the culture of horticulture. I'm here. I'm excited. I'm ready to roll. How are you guys? Fine and handy. Breath's got like a sweet shawl going on right now.
Knitting, Seasons, and Coffee Chat
00:00:25
Speaker
I'm loving it. It's a Stephen West pattern. It was knitted by Dr. Ann Kemple, Dr. Annie Kemple.
00:00:34
Speaker
You have an inside track on those products I hear. The ratio of sweaters she knits for her to think she knits for me is like 30 to one. I mean, she's doing the work, so. Get back to me in 2026 for my next edition for the fall collection.
00:00:55
Speaker
But their quality accessories though bread I can tell that no it's very it's very nice I'm just just razzing. It's pretty cool. I think of it the colors Make me think of like it's like a lion's mane or something, you know That you needed like a wide brim hat on and a pumpkin spice latte, that's where I was going oh
00:01:17
Speaker
What? In the best way. I mean, in the best way. You do need coffee accessory with that. You do need like a coffee, a specialized coffee drink with that,
Transplant Planning and Volunteer Plant Success
00:01:26
Speaker
I feel. Yeah. That would make me, uh, oh, I could have my, my, uh, Yerba Maté cup. In the Andes mountains, like you're leading a mule up a single jack path with like a big sun hat makes me think of like.
00:01:39
Speaker
You know, what's his face from Island of Dr. Moreau? Like this. I don't know. Just somebody really eccentric. Yes. That leaves me. It makes me think of Johnny Depp, especially with like my crazy like tired bags under my eyes. And I look like Johnny Depp. Like, you know. Just kind of, you got to move in a weird way. Jack Sparrow in there. A little bit of Jack. Like Keith Richards kind of. Yeah.
00:02:05
Speaker
I can tell it's winter. We're all in, it seems like we're all morphing slowly into winter mode and I don't know exactly what that is, but for me it's, it's short day mode. I mean, I don't know. Yeah. It's a gloomiest heck outside. Yeah. And I found myself yesterday already checking like the date for like winter solstice. I'm like, when is?
00:02:23
Speaker
When is the sun returning? When are we going to start going the other direction? It's funny that you say Solstice because that is when I start thinking about transplants for the following year actually is when the light starts to return. We never think about transplants soon enough. I mean, I am always thinking about.
00:02:43
Speaker
I'm thinking about even, I'm thinking about even more than always, whatever that is. I'm thinking about it. Even when I'm not thinking, always in forever, always times a million. So that's what we're talking about today. Josh, are you even a plant person? Like, I mean, I never had a person ever stopping a tracks that tracks. But anyways, we're talking about just goes out in December.
00:03:08
Speaker
throws a handful of seeds into the field and lets God decide. Yes, let him sort it out. It's the virtue of inaction or appropriate action. Right. You can't say darling against nature, I'm with nature. I'm waiting for the light to return. I'm waiting for the light to return.
00:03:28
Speaker
You know, you said you're working with nature and that's real funny because some of the best transplants, it always kind of gets under my skin a little bit as I spend all this money on, you know, in the past, I spent money and resources on like grow tables and with the heat mats, 80 degree heat mats and a lot sources, you know, all the money for growing transplants and the dumb tomato seeds that fell out from last year produced these beautiful transplants that are ahead of mine the next
Planting Schedules and Seed Starting
00:03:56
Speaker
year.
00:03:56
Speaker
Because mother nature apparently knows what she's doing i mean i don't get it i mean does anybody else had those experiences the best i go out and dig them up and then plant them and then i'm like looking at all my accessories that i purchased like what good are you so volunteers you know volunteers like the only the strong.
00:04:15
Speaker
Yeah, it's on that natural kind of, uh, it goes through nature cycle of cold and, you know, the seasonal changes and all of this, but yeah, it's, it's, it's always amazing that some of the best plants I've ever grown have been on the edges of compost piles that have taken care of themselves. So Alexis, maybe before we jump into some of the techniques or approaches that timeline thing I think is helpful. So when, when do you think of, okay, so what are you starting at this point and what do you think of as
00:04:46
Speaker
the window when you're going to start putting some seeds into soil and trays. Well, it's 100% dependent on what you're growing and what season it's in. We've talked about warm season versus cool season and a lot of those things, if they're fast or slow and how many times, because you could be seeding and there are times if I'm on my game, which is rare, but every once in a while, I'm seeding
00:05:13
Speaker
on a much smaller scale, but through the summer, you know, to have fall crops, but also to have a second round of summer crops, depending on what they are and how fast. But I mean, I think for most of us who are growing outside, you can start thinking about some of those early things in Kentucky, seeding them in probably March, if you're going to do like cool season veggies or cool season flowers.
00:05:42
Speaker
You know, March 10th is tomatoes and peppers. I mean, March 10th, March 15th, that's tomatoes and peppers. That's six to eight weeks. Yeah. Yeah. Which is crazy to me. That always shocks me that it's that early. And that's the number one thing when I'm talking with people that that's just even saying that out loud now seems like it's wrong. I'm going to go after fact.
00:06:01
Speaker
Yeah, I pushed them. I always see it thing because tomatoes and peppers is closer to four to six weeks on that time of year. And I think that just, it's, I think it's practice. Um, and you're going to be like the biggest thing read the back of the package those days to maturity, how many weeks before we've talked about that before. So you can go back and check out that episode, but it's, it's planning. So like, I will spend December and January looking back at what I have done in the past, but if you've not done this before.
00:06:30
Speaker
collect everything you want to grow. You've probably already bought it. And if you haven't, you're about to buy it because you're about to get a buttload of seed catalogs in and it's very exciting. Oh, it's like a kid at Christmas circling all the toys in the book.
00:06:44
Speaker
But, you know, so you're going to get those in and you're going to look at them. And I hate to say it. No, I don't hate to say it. I love to say it. Josh is going to love it. Have a spreadsheet. Yeah, transplanting is all about the data. Yeah, all about the numbers. Yeah. And so I would just briefly like to point out, I love spreadsheets and like on a deeply personal level. And so every time the only Josh gets the spreadsheet love, I do feel a little left out. I just want to share my feelings.
00:07:11
Speaker
I enjoy them a little bit differently. Well, Annie's friends make fun of me. I'll be thinking about a thing, and she'll be like, oh, are you going to make a spreadsheet for that? I'm like, no, that wouldn't make any sense, because a spreadsheet wouldn't be the right tool for that. That's not the right format. I would never make fun of anything like that. Yes, I will be making a spreadsheet of that. And you will be telling us. Yeah, a spreadsheet of all the hurtful things you've said to me now.
00:07:37
Speaker
You don't have to do a spreadsheet. You can do a piece of notebook paper and make your own little columns. Some way of keeping the record and sketching out. What are you sketching out in this document? One thing that I don't think people think about, but it will save you some time if you grow the same things every year, is
00:07:59
Speaker
if it's how you sow it. What I mean by that is some seeds have to be in complete darkness in order to germinate. When I'm doing my research, I'm already looking in the places that tell me how this should be sown. Does it need to be surface sowed? Where it's going to get light? Does it need complete darkness? Does it need high humidity? There's all these little things. A lot of times the seed package will tell you. While I'm already looking up,
00:08:24
Speaker
how many days it is to germinate and how many days until I can get it out in the field, I'll make a column for that and that will save you a lot of time. People are tripped up on flowers especially and so am I. A lot of us maybe have more experience, some of us maybe with vegetable seedlings but with flowers, I get tripped up on that. Is that a common thing with
00:08:45
Speaker
Different flower crops that some of those need to be subsurface. Some of those need to be surface or yeah, yeah, they are different and sometimes I forget to look and and You know, I end up doing the wrong process, right? Like if you bury a snapdragon seed It's probably not gonna come up because it needs light to germinate That's just part of it the way that plant drops its seed and when it drops it just that's the way the plant the seed has
00:09:09
Speaker
learn to do its thing. There's stuff like that in the vegetable world. You don't want to plant seeds too deep, so that's something that you can also write down, so a quarter inch deep or something along those lines. How many weeks before frost, usually your seed packs will say, hey, so put me in six to eight weeks.
Transplanting Techniques and Challenges
00:09:32
Speaker
I always tell people it's better to have transplants
00:09:36
Speaker
a little later, like it's better to get them in a week later or two weeks later than you thought, then have them be stuck in a tray for too long. Don't sew things too early, you will really do more damage. And it's hard, like it's so exciting to be able to start seeds and to see something grow and
00:09:58
Speaker
I know it's hard, but do yourself a favor and follow the rules. Just two pieces of information there, Alexis, is what I heard in summarizing what you just said is you need two pieces of information. You need to know when typically that transplant, because we're talking about transplants today, not direct seeding into a garden, whatever you're putting in a garden.
00:10:20
Speaker
You need to know, number one, the average date that that transplant is supposed to go in the garden. And everything from that point, once you know that piece of information, you can reverse engineer the process. The next piece of information you need to know is how many weeks it takes to produce on average a finished transplant. And if it's a pepper that takes six to seven weeks, based on that given variety, and you know the date that it's supposed to go on the ground, you're just reverse engineering that back six weeks. And that's when it needs to go.
00:10:50
Speaker
You know, being seated. Yeah. So that those two pieces of information, is that what I'm hearing? That's what we need to know for the date it goes on the ground and how many weeks to produce transplant. Yeah. And then if there's any anything special about, you know, producing that plant like darkness or light or something along those lines.
00:11:07
Speaker
That is light or humidity does that make you I mean just to kind of interject a question like you kind of you maybe group your trays according to that those needs as far as like humidity and temperature and so that way you have these different growing areas that you.
00:11:25
Speaker
Put them for your indoor spaces. Yeah, I mean I think You know certainly if you're germinating something that needs complete darkness to germinate it will need light immediately so you have to check on it so It those are not as big of a deal But the light when you're surface sewing which is in a tray and you're just dropping the seed you're not covering it with anything and
00:11:46
Speaker
I think the watering is what plays in to that actually, because if you are watering from the top, you can displace those seeds. They go flying everywhere. So everything that I need to water in a specific way, I'll group together and then maybe things that grow a lot faster and I know we're going to need more water. They may need it twice a day.
00:12:05
Speaker
they'll get together in a different way. So yeah, and you might not know that getting started, you'll figure it out really quick. Like if you're attentive, just looking at your trays every day, you will kind of figure out the best way to do that. And that goes for, you know, if you're doing transplants in
00:12:25
Speaker
What am I talking about? Soil blocking or regular plastic trays or the yogurt cup that you washed out, whatever you're growing it in, it's applicable even if you are doing a huge greenhouse. This is how they do things. And I think one, we talk about seeds a lot with transplants, but also something that I've started doing a lot more of.
00:12:44
Speaker
And that the light is really important for we talk about like the light is starting to come back, uh, is growing from cuttings. So. You know, like, uh, centedrania, I'm trying to think you could do cuttings of tomatoes if you wanted, if you brought one tomato plant in that was in the pot and it's still alive and you want to.
00:13:01
Speaker
Keep it and have a bunch of little baby clones of that. You can do that. But geraniums are a good one What else cuttings? Ray do usually see I do chrysanthemums Tender geranium trying to think what we do for with master gardeners. We do the really easy things like potos and yes house plants Jade I mean lots of lots of the common things like that. I've done elm juniper. Oh Wow
00:13:28
Speaker
fruit trees, not so much fruit trees, but like ornamental trees, all kinds of cutting-based stuff. Can I clarify one thing that you said earlier? Make sure I'm understanding. You said earlier about the, you know, you're excited, you want to get your seeds started and do something in the middle of this cold time. So you're saying to me,
00:13:52
Speaker
A 10-week transplant isn't necessarily better than a six-week transplant if a six-week transplant is the right time to be putting it outside, right? That's part of what you're saying? That extra time, like let's say I have a plant and I've looked it up and the optimal transplant age is six weeks.
00:14:11
Speaker
If I'm growing that transplant, I want to put it in as close to that six week window as possible. It's very difficult for homeowners to hold transplants without them getting leggy. I mean, there's some things you can do as far as manipulating water, but as far as like chemical treatments and inhibitors, we don't have a lot of the homeowners don't have a lot of those options nor would they want that because those are, you know, plodding tiny amounts. If you're not trying to hit a specific growing or planting window,
00:14:38
Speaker
Like you're not trying to get it in as early as you possibly can. You're a little more of a flexible system. It's better to start your seeds later in the year. To eat and start your seeds later. Let them grow up. And then if you need an extra week past Derby Day in Kentucky. Yeah.
00:14:53
Speaker
then put them out a little bit later because they're not ready. That's better. I just make sure that because that was really nuanced and really good. Wisdom that you shared. I just want to make sure it didn't get lost. It's a terrible thing if you put those seeds in early and you end up having a cool spell late in the spring season because you know we know the average frost dates for where we are is like the end of April, beginning of May, first week or two. It is interesting. The trade-off because it's like
00:15:19
Speaker
If you can get the plant into the ground, it's going to grow way faster in the ground than it is in a tray. Two weeks in the ground at the right time is way better than an extra two weeks in the tray because it's not ready to go outside. Because in the tray, you are really limiting your fertility management. You're in a system that's very lean as far as fertilizer. I think of it like trying to keep a kid in a shoe that's too small for them.
00:15:46
Speaker
So, you know, like their feet are going to hurt. They're not going to, they're going to be cranky when they walk around, you know, there's all this kind of thing. And so then when they get into that bigger shoe, their foot is already achy, you know, and so that they're, they don't want to necessarily go out and run because their feet ache from that small shoe. So your feet hurt and you're kind of cranky.
00:16:04
Speaker
Like, is that what, it's like hitting your thirties also. The shoe analogy is a good one, but you were, you were talking, leading us, I think in the direction of cuttings maybe, uh, or talking about that. I just wanted to let people know it was kind of, when we think about transplants, I'm, I think everybody knows this, but transplant is just essentially, we've got a rooted plant that can go into, uh, the ground or a larger system, whatever that is. Maybe it's a large pot, maybe it's a raised bed.
00:16:34
Speaker
Maybe it's a high tunnel, whatever that is. That's what we're talking about here. And I think that's obvious, but those, that plant that you're dropping into the soil can come from a cutting or it can come from a seed. Um, so I just wanted to be clear on that because cutting, I think is something a lot of time you'll start earlier, uh, because you've got to, you've got to get it to root. It takes a while to root for a lot of these things.
00:17:00
Speaker
And there's, that's a whole, we could do a whole episode on like how to take woody cuttings because the time would love to do a series of episodes on propagation. So I can, my bread and butter and propagation. I love the pro in propagation.
00:17:15
Speaker
You've got that one fruit tree with seven different apple varieties. Yes, we do, because we like to experiment. I'm more of an amateur vigation person myself. The island of Dr. Moreau is making more and more sense at this point. It really is. We like to create amalgams that is really akin to alchemy. I like it. chimeras. Yes, chimeras even. I'm trying to think as we're having this discussion here.
00:17:44
Speaker
Commercial producers have a pretty good handle on garden math and reverse engineering the process and putting together a good process to grow transplants. But I'm thinking of typical scenarios for homeowners and what they struggle with.
00:17:59
Speaker
It seems like light. You have to control four or five major factors to produce a good transplant and do a decent job as a homeowner. But when I'm working with people, it's always amazing to them that they always need more light than they think they do. Because to produce a good transplant, you usually need, in most situations, yes, you can do a good job in windowsill. And I know folks that have south-facing windows that can do a good job. Most people at home, I found, can't if they just want to grow a few transplants.
00:18:28
Speaker
It seems like they need supplemental light and they're always shocked that they need to leave that. It's a common recommendation I make to purchase a grow light and put that two to four inches once that transplant emerges and you get it to germinate and starts growing and you've got that light two to four inches on there. But not only the placement of the light two to four inches, but that thing needs to be on 12 to 14 hours a day and that always surprises people.
00:18:53
Speaker
Average growing day is like eight hours. Well, that grow light is not the sun. It doesn't have the same intensity. So you can either manage intensity or duration. In this case, you're just extending the duration of that grow light. So that's an important thing that I go over with people.
00:19:08
Speaker
that if you're going to go to the trouble and expensive purchasing a grow light, make sure that you understand that most common transplants like garden transplants I'm going to talk about have more experience in that area, but you know that you need to run that a certain amount of time, typically 12 to 14 hours.
00:19:24
Speaker
I start with that, but what else, what other common tripping points do we have as homeowners and as they grow transplants? Yeah, go ahead. On that light thing, the thing that you see that happens is the thing may germinate in response to warmth and moisture, but then it'll be extremely weak and or it will grow what we call extremely leggy. It'll have really long internodes as the plant stretches to try to reach the light.
00:19:49
Speaker
And that is not good for something like a tomato plant, for instance, because we don't want strong branching down low, we want it to be able to support that structure and then have be able to flower and it just creates a weaker transplant because it's it's basically the plant trying to survive in an unoptimal environment reaches. Yeah.
00:20:07
Speaker
So I mean, in that regard, like that's why you want that down close. So you're bringing the light right through there. Yeah, exactly, Brett. It's like the plan is interpreting that there's some canopy covered. It's trying to go beyond it. Yes. It reaches to try to get that advantage. And I manage all these things. And I'm supposed to know what I'm doing. But we had a master gardener's class this past year. And I had a group of transplants at the master gardener's seat. And I'm like, why are these things stretching? I've managed moisture. I've managed fertility. I've managed.
00:20:34
Speaker
the light source. And I've managed, I thought, the nighttime temperatures because it was tomatoes.
00:20:41
Speaker
And come to find out in the meeting room, I was gone for a couple of weeks and someone had cranked up the temperature and I didn't know it because I'd been turning the temperature down every night. Daytime temps were around 70 to 71 nighttime. I was turning the thermostat down the meeting room to 62 degrees or so. And someone found that uncomfortable, apparently, because it had ran for a couple of weeks. The temperature had at about 75, 76 degrees. And it really caused all of those tomato plants to really stretch when I'd done everything else correct.
00:21:12
Speaker
That the only difference, the only variable that was different was the temperature and it made a huge difference. And then finally it dawned on me. I was like, oh, the temperature got me. It wasn't fertility, which a lot of people think that the reason that plant stretches are getting too much fertilizer. I find that's not the case most times for homeowners.
00:21:33
Speaker
In my case, that was just the temperature. I had the lot that was perfect, a good lot source with the quality bulbs, but that was it. It was just a temperature thing.
00:21:43
Speaker
homeowners, you're managing multiple things at one time, you know, temperature, the lot, in some cases, ventilation, and you're definitely, you know, managing moisture, but not only that, the temperature varies when you're trying to get these things germinated versus when they're germinating and they come through the ground, then you have to kind of change things up a little bit. So you're juggling. The thing that homeowners need to know is that you're juggling kind of multiple things at one time, making these considerations to grow a good transplant.
00:22:12
Speaker
Yeah, I think another another stumbling block maybe which maybe we could talk about temperature and ways of managing dealing with
Temperature and Humidity Management
00:22:20
Speaker
that. I don't know if that's a good one to temperature is a good place for me to start because you will oftentimes see these grow kits that you can purchase and they have clear domes that go over those when you're trying to germinate for a very good reason.
00:22:33
Speaker
because it helps maintain moisture. And some seeds, I guess, Alexis, you guys, some seeds to actually germinate them take a higher temperature. A lot of garden crops is around 80 degrees, but there are certain garden crops that may take 90. You need to know that by looking on the seed pack. And the humidity tent is going to help with that. It's going to help maintain moisture. But a stumbling block that I see there with temperature from the very beginning is,
00:22:59
Speaker
not pulling that heat mat, if you're using a heat mat at home, not pulling that off quick enough. And that means looking at those seedlings every day. And once they germinate, usually I recommend in almost all cases, immediately pulling that heat mat, turning that heat mat off, cause that can cause real problems. And I've made that mistake before. Now, Josh, I know you're probably talking about later on, if you don't manage the, uh, or a Brett rather.
00:23:25
Speaker
You're talking about later on managing the process, the temperature, and you have to do that too. You have to watch your day and night temps. It's not absolutely critical to turn the thermostat down at night, but that can help. A lot of these crops is a little lower. If you're new to the heat mat game, you can get ones that have a thermostat built in, but you can also just get ones that are less expensive.
00:23:49
Speaker
You don't have a thermostat and you can buy a separate thermostat and potentially run multiple heat mats off of one thermostat. And that's got, so that's basically like the thermostat thing plugs into the outlet. It's got a little up and down arrow and other buttons maybe. And you set a temperature just like you do on your, you know, your heat or your air conditioning or whatever. And then you plug the heat mat into that and it's got a little, the thermostat has a probe that comes off of it. You can put the probe into the soil.
00:24:17
Speaker
Um, cause that's ultimately what we're caring about. We don't care about the making the whole room hot. We want that soil level to be warm. Yeah. And you've said it to, okay, when, when the soil temperature reaches 75 degrees, shut off the heat mat when it re anyone drops below that, kick the heat mat back on. Uh, and those things are all very like widely commercially available. Yeah. I've noticed the ones that you can find at local box stores are just, I believe they're the ones just set around 80 degrees. Cause that's the most common temp. Mm-hmm.
00:24:47
Speaker
But if you go online and look, you see these really cool kind of options like Brett's describing the ones that you can actually control a little bit more. And if you're going to be growing a lot of transplants, I'd suggest maybe you look into those because you can get, you know, you can get the mats and kind of modify those for the crops that are appropriate for 80 degrees. And then the ones that are more appropriate for 90 degrees, you can use the same map for both different types of crops. If you're going to be growing a lot of transplants, kind of pay attention to that because germination temps do vary.
00:25:17
Speaker
And people that come and complain and say, oh, I've not had any love growing such and such crop. It's usually those crops that take a higher germination temp. That in a lot of cases, that's it. So yeah.
00:25:30
Speaker
or the little tiny, tiny scenes that you can't even see. Oh, go too deep. Yeah. Which media is, what do you guys think about media as far as growing transplants? Oh, man. That's different. Also, that's a lot different. I think we're saturated by it. I think it's too much all over Facebook, I think. Wait. Oh, sorry. Desoration. I see. We veered off. I would like to hear what you all say about media because I think there's a lot of options and
00:25:56
Speaker
You know, sometimes it's like surely the simplest, most straightforward option isn't the best, right? There's something I'm missing, right? Well, with Alexis, what she said, she was getting ready to say something. I think that's what made me think about it when she said getting seeds too deep. And that makes me immediately think about the top of media, first of all, that you're using.
00:26:16
Speaker
Yeah, so I mean, I like, and this is just what I like for seed growing and for starting, well, even not all my cuttings go in this, but a majority of everything can go in a potting media that contains perlite vermiculite, and it's a soil-less media, essentially, perlite vermiculite, and usually it's like a peat moss.
00:26:40
Speaker
For fine seeds, I prefer a peat moss, but if you're doing something larger or you're doing cuttings of something, you could go with something more like a cocoa core.
00:26:50
Speaker
something a little bit more sustainable if you'd like to and fully support that. I recently had a friend up the street who said, Alexis, I'm having trouble getting these seeds started. I've reseeded. Can you watch them?
00:27:11
Speaker
A better setup than she has and I was like yeah sure I mean if you've done all the works even I'm like I can water them when I water mine and she brought them down and they were whatever soil media she had and she bought it from just like. I don't even like not even a box store like a place that doesn't normally they only sell potting media in the spring and you grab it with your groceries kind of store.
00:27:32
Speaker
She bought it in a yard sale. Yeah, basically. And I think it was really old. I think it had been open and it was really old, which does matter if it's not stored correctly. And her trays, the soil was so hydrophobic, I couldn't get it to hydrate. And the soil was shedding the media size, the individual particles in the media are so large for what she was growing and I couldn't get it to hydrate.
00:28:00
Speaker
It's not even that I couldn't get to stay hydrated. I couldn't get hydrated at all. Like I soaked the trays. I don't know what it was, but it was like concrete. And I was like, well, this Emily, this is why your plants plants are growing. And she's like, I know. And I'm actually going to go pick her up some soil when I pick up mine as well of kind of the media that I, I prefer to use for most things. But you can also do like, if you're doing something, cuttings, they make these things called that are like little,
00:28:27
Speaker
They're called Oasis cubes. You've probably seen them even transplants and you've probably seen them and they do start seeds in them, but they're like almost kind of like a foam that degrades and it just is an easy way to stick cuttings in there and much more simple. So that's kind of cool, but I prefer like a peat moss based media for seeds. Now for woodies or something like that, I think you can get away with a larger media.
00:28:57
Speaker
a barkier media, cocoa core kind of thing. Or just straight perlite sometimes is the way to go. I was just going to clarify. When you say a peat moss based one, some of the things you might come across that are peat moss based mixes are things like a pro mix, something like
00:29:18
Speaker
even miracle grow. Yeah. Miracle grow potty mix like they sell a big hawkscore. Yeah. So that the brown kind of thready. Little dusty. If you get it wet, it's not like mud, but it's like a little bit spongy. That traditional potty mix is usually, you're usually thinking of a peat based mix. And then when you say larger, the larger, you're typically mixing that yourself.
00:29:44
Speaker
Um, there is one that I have used that had a name, it was called Barky Beaver. Uh, and then we used to use that at South Farm. You might probably remember the like big stall full of it. Uh, and that is really great. I think for, um, woodies and certain like bumping up transplants, because it's a little bit more, it just depends what you're growing. Uh, we didn't use that for too many things, but I've started a lot of cuttings before in, uh, perlite to just straight perlite.
00:30:15
Speaker
in a very humid environment because perlite, if you're not sure what I'm talking about, it's the white stuff that's in potting mix. And so I've grown full large cucumber plants in that before. So as long as it has nutrients and plenty of water, it can do a lot. But yeah, I mean, I think if you're just wanting to do seed, don't buy it from a store that doesn't regularly have it.
DIY Planting Media and Material Sourcing
00:30:41
Speaker
Yeah is one recommendation because a lot of make sure they rotate stock and have Yeah, it will clump up in a weird way and You know sometimes don't purchase anything that says garden soil. Yeah, usually or mineral-based soil Yeah, and you can usually tell because that that bag weighs a hundred. I mean it's very very heavy. Yeah And my crack it should say like potty. Yes
00:31:04
Speaker
potting mix and if you're new to starting seeds maybe even look go one step further not only potting mix but look for seed starting mix which tends to be way more fine the consistency is a lot different and those mixes tend to be in smaller bags the seed starting mixes and they have some modifiers in there
00:31:24
Speaker
I see, I don't, maybe you have better experience with the seed starting mixer. The ones I've always seen that are locally available here have starter fertilizer in them and I don't recommend that. Yeah, generally do not like that because that's another variable that takes, it's out of my control then and I do not like that. Well, and seeds don't, you can, they don't.
00:31:46
Speaker
like fertilizer that quickly. Um, I mean, they need fertilizer, you know, within a kind of a week or so of popping up, but like that, those couple of days when they're just germinating and that baby, little baby radicals coming out, um, and our little cotyledons that truly detrimental. Yeah. Yeah.
00:32:07
Speaker
But that can be detrimental and it's a kind of a waste of money. You can get regular fertilizer, you know, whether that's organic or conventional, a lot cheaper than what you're paying for in that mix. So usually people that tend to get their seeds too deep, that's the ones that I'm like, why don't you try this really fine mix?
00:32:25
Speaker
if they're using the fine mix, if they're seeding tiny seeds, the seeds have a lot less chance to go deep, too deep into the mix, if it's a fine mix. And they're the ones, for homeowners specifically, that I kind of start to recommend. I start to question them, and if they start mentioning a bunch of things that are tiny seeded, I'm like, consider a seed starting mix if you have tiny seeds. Not so important for peppers and tomatoes, because you can use a general,
00:32:52
Speaker
For my experience, a mix for that, and it's harder to go too deep on those. You can go too deep, but it's not as critical. I recommend for people instead of, especially if they've already bought something, you kind of feel bad about telling them to buy something else. I guess you're technically buying something else, but what I like to do with my surface sewed seeds is
00:33:14
Speaker
to either mix them with vermiculite, which is the shiny stuff in potting soil, or just cover them and just surface sew them so it's really hard to bury them too deep when they're in vermiculite. So that's been something that's been helpful to me and just passing that around to people that have had similar problems.
00:33:36
Speaker
or just like surface of them and then you sprinkle potting soil on top. You're salting your seeds with potting soil type of emotion. Just in case you're thinking that you have to go to some crazy specialty store to get this stuff, you can. We do have actually on the CCD site a list of horticulture suppliers in the state of Kentucky, but I will say from experience, you can order
00:34:04
Speaker
Perlite, vermiculite, peat, cocoa coir. Cocoa coir comes in this like often compressed bricks. So it ships a lot smaller. You can rehydrate it. And then if you want to get into mixing your own stuff, if you do it right, it can be much cheaper than buying the premixed stuff. You need a lot. If you need a lot of it.
00:34:27
Speaker
And that you can get that stuff all, like you can get that all from the world's largest online retailer. They sell large, you know, four cubic foot bags of, uh, per of perlite in different sizes. Um, so yeah, you can, if you're, if you don't know where a hoarder, a supplier is sometimes, I think sometimes we talk about some of this technical stuff and it feels like, well, okay, but where do I even get that? You can just order it. You can also order smaller bags of it, like, uh, Scotts and miracle grow and all those, they have.
00:34:56
Speaker
and they might have it at the box store, just perlite, just to mix a little bit. They do now. Sometimes it's not with the potting soil though, look by the houseplants stuff, like houseplant fertilizer and houseplant things, and they have
00:35:12
Speaker
some straight peat moss, straight perlite, straight vermiculite, um, because I bought it, you know, in real small bags, you know, and you're not filling, you might fill two trays. That goes a long way for homeowners. I mean, those small bags and one of my old mixes is just a 50, 50, 50% peat moss and almost that same amount vermiculite. But I mean, whatever mix, whatever reason you're, you're mixing to make your own, a little goes a long way for homeowners.
00:35:36
Speaker
Especially if you're using seed trays, but commercial's obviously a lot different. To just briefly reprise my lame joke archetype. Please, my dad is Mr. Moss. Call me Pete. Thank you. Oh, man. Here it comes. It's Friday. That's not a ticket to say. Say these things, Brett. That's not a ticket to say these things. Oh, man.
00:35:58
Speaker
Okay. So, and we've talked about starting seeds before, so I don't want to like get too hung up on that because we have an episode on starting seeds, which, you know, it's important this time of year, but I think that there's like the growing on part of it too. And we've kind of talked about a little bit about light, you know, as far as fertilizer, they don't need a ton of fertilizer when they're that young.
00:36:23
Speaker
I tend often to not, depending on how fat, how long I'm keeping track of them. If it's like a tomato or a zinnia that's quick, it germinates in two days and it's out the door in six weeks max. I may only hit it with fertilizer one time, but I'm putting fertilizer down when I plant, so it's ready to go. But they're usually pretty good because everything's so fast. You don't need to overdo it.
00:36:53
Speaker
If you've got like something that's a 12 week until it goes outside, you might need to fertilize a little bit. But remember a lot of the times when we're starting our seeds, it's still cool outside. You're not, they're not getting the right amount of light. So if you over fertilize, you're going to push them in a bad way. Just like if you, if the light's not where it needs to be. And then there's the getting it in the ground. Like I think that's part of the transplant section is making sure that you're
00:37:22
Speaker
Planting well, you're planting on, you know, the ideal day is like a cloudy day so that they're not super stressed. Especially if they've not been hardened off. I have lost a lot of plants. Yeah, maybe let's talk about hardening off really quick, Ray. That sounds like it's the third part of the temperature control, right? Yes, the temperature control for the growing on and then the temperature control for hardening off.
00:37:48
Speaker
Yeah. Cause you grow these things under your nice grow ladder on the interior conditions. They're not really in most cases ready to go outside under full sun because you're going to get a lot of marginal and just total leaf burn potentially. So usually what you're doing, I guess for most plants is you go through this period. The first thing I think about doing that week or so, or even up to two weeks before I move plants as
00:38:13
Speaker
plants outside, if I did fertilizers once, maximum, twice, is no more fertilizer, and then I start cutting the water slowly. That's my first step. The second step is I move those plants ideally in and out on a cloudy day, get them used to some sun or evening sun, not direct sunlight. You need to go through a process of temperature and light acclimation. And that's what we were calling hardening off. You just don't take a plant that's been grown on the inside under grow lights.
00:38:42
Speaker
and put it in the sun because it will melt very quickly. And so you need to go through that process and become familiar with that hardening off. So it involves, first of all, water towards the end of the process and that'll help a little bit. And then you start kind of, as I said, moving that plant in and out slowly to get used to the sun.
00:39:04
Speaker
And that's another reason not to start your transplants too early because if you, if they're ready to go and you can't get them in the ground yet, because it's, you know, you got a frost coming or something like that. You're going to spend more time moving them in and out versus, you know, having them ready. But yeah, 10 days a week is kind of like a minimum that I would say for most plans, depending on how hard, you know, how good your light is, but it's an acclimation process. That's what hardening off is.
00:39:33
Speaker
And it's definitely do that really important. Yeah. Yeah. Are there common signs you look for that maybe you're pushing them too hard when they're, when you're hardening them off? Like as far as their responses, they're like sunscald on the leaves, some spotting or a withering, um, when, you know, they really shouldn't be sometimes you just get collapse. If you get a really warm spring day and you've not
00:40:02
Speaker
and you just kind of throw them out on morning sun for four hours, you're going to get burned and, and wilt. I will say though, you know, you don't want that to happen because every time that a plant gets stressed, that's what we're saying. Only the strong will survive. You don't, you don't want that to happen, but if it does happen,
00:40:27
Speaker
don't just freak out and throw the flat out. Yeah, yeah. Water them, hold them into a shadier location and they you will be shocked. They look like they are dead. As long as the bud is not damaged. And they come back. So to this point and on the why you want to do this on a overcast day, we had some watermelon when I used to work at the farm, we had some watermelon transplants for a project. And it was just going to
00:40:59
Speaker
storm. I was trying to avoid cursing. It was going to storm very hard. And we, it was, but it was like, you know, that before the storm, weird May, early June timeline, where it's just so hot. Of course, they're going into black plastic. Of course, the transplants aren't as far along as they should be. All those things. We got to try. We got to do this. So I put them in and those things looked
00:41:29
Speaker
done. Absolutely. I was like, what have we done? Why? Why do we do? Why do we do this? It rained. They chilled out. And like 95% of them popped right back up. And granted, they were stressed. They didn't do as well as they would have if everything perfectly. But I mean, it was one of those like moments where I was just like, they're done. I mean, they look like melted. It looks like you took this made of ice. Yeah.
00:41:55
Speaker
And they came back and survived. And from then on, I was like, okay, plants are pretty tough. Plants want to live. They want to live, but also like. You don't want this to happen as my colleagues have amply demonstrated, but there is a lot of resilience in plants as well. So we're at the hardening off phase and thinking about the transplant phase. Is that where we are? Yeah. I think I see.
00:42:20
Speaker
I've had, I've had a lot of experience with people planting transplants of all like they've been gardening their entire life and they've never planted a thing in their life. Had a lot of experience of all different sizes of plants. So I feel like.
00:42:35
Speaker
pretty good about talking about things to do and things you might not think about if this is your first time or maybe you had some problems with plants the last year. For 90% of plants, the only one I can think of off the top of my head would be tomatoes. It's very important to plant at the right depth. You don't want to smother them, so you don't want to have a bunch of soil going up that stem because it will rot most of the time.
00:43:01
Speaker
Yeah. And you also don't want roots sticking out of the ground. That is like my biggest pet peeve is when I see roots that have popped up. And I know sometimes like you think you tucked it in and I, you know, I go back when I do planting and I, you know, find a few that just decided not to settle down properly, but make sure the roots are covered. If they dry out, that plant is weak. It wilts early. Um, things eat it like, you know, it gets knocked out. It's just a really simple thing. That is, I think one of the things I see
00:43:31
Speaker
done wrong the most is it's just not settled down into the ground. The second thing that people don't do is water in their transplants. I don't care if it's going to rain in two hours because the moment you don't water, it doesn't rain and then in the middle of the night, you forget about it by the morning. I've been there. I understand.
00:43:53
Speaker
water your transplants in because even just a little shot of water, it's not a super deep watering that you're doing, you're just... And air cavity is not your roots friend. Exactly. Air cavity will destroy your roots underground. What you're trying to do is settle that soil around that root ball and you're tucking it in at night. You're getting all snuggly and tucking it in and that is...
00:44:16
Speaker
Make sure it's planted at the right depth and make sure you water it in are the two biggest things that will set you off for success. You know, kind of after that hardening off phase that I could recommend. And we're talking about planning here, Lexus, and maybe we should talk about a little bit of a fringe case here when we're dealing with transplants and it comes up from time to time, but like squash and cucumbers, there's a little bit different strategy.
00:44:43
Speaker
when you're growing those transplants because those transplants are so tender. The roots are so tender that you want to grow those typically, I think for homeowners in like a peak container that can be planted directly into the ground.
00:44:59
Speaker
Because if you try to grow some of those crops, finding crops specifically like squash, cucumbers, things like that, you know, you've watermelon that kind of falls into that. There's a lot of crops that the roots are just so tender that if for whatever reason you're growing transplants of those crops at home, you'll want to put those in peak containers and transplant the whole container into the soil. Because if you try to pull that transplant out of that container, nine times out of 10, you've already killed that transplant. It's done.
00:45:27
Speaker
And I try to stress that the homeowners if I figure out that they're going to grow some of these things to go ahead and use peak containers for those very tender crops.
Handling Tender Transplants
00:45:38
Speaker
And if you have questions on that we have.
00:45:40
Speaker
The home vegetable gardening in Kentucky has some wonderful charts. I think like Table 5 has some of that data. There's a lot of information on growing transplants in that home vegetable gardening in Kentucky. I think, what is that? ID 128? Yeah, ID 128. Table 5 and 6 are good for transplanting. But all of this information is in there. But for homeowners, pay close attention to that. If you're growing those crops, you'll want to use peak containers so that you don't have to slip those transplants out and put them in the soil. You can just direct plant those.
00:46:10
Speaker
And since you were talking about planting in the soil, Alexis, I thought I'd kind of add that on. Yeah, I never thought about that. Right. I, you know, I grew some gourds for a class that I taught. Um, and I had some leftover and like, uh, in a cell tray and not a big cell tray, like, uh, I think it was like a 72 cell. So, you know, the cells are the size of a half dollar or something like that. And so I had one tray leftover.
00:46:37
Speaker
And, uh, I put them down on some, uh, fabric at the house and I was like, Oh, I'll plant these, you know, extras, extras at the house and have some gourds. And I put them down and, uh, you know, kept them water and they were on like a weed mat type fabric. That's like woven. So there's the root roots could get down in there. And don't, you know, those, those things made it all season and they rooted down through that weed mat. Oh, wow.
00:47:05
Speaker
And I had gourds and they grew gourds, even though they were in that. That's a little crazy. Yeah. I didn't fertilize them. I mean, they might've gotten a little bit because of other stuff I was hitting, but they got watered and they got tons of powdery mildew and they, I did nothing. I was like, plants want to live, right? They'll figure most of the time they figure out a way. You see the dandelion growing in the concrete and you're like, how does that work with your asphalt? Yeah. Johnson grass.
00:47:29
Speaker
through asphalt where we just shoot straight up through six inches of asphalt, yeah. It's the devil. Yeah, I mean, I would say if you have grown those... So I've only ever grown those cucurbit transplants in an actual legit greenhouse and never... It was simulating a production commercial scale environment.
00:47:53
Speaker
And we didn't have any issues, but yeah, I mean, that is a good shot. I just think if you were able to grow vigorous transplants and you've been doing it without the peak container, then go for it. That means you know how to handle those gently. You probably already have a good grasp on, no pun intended, good grasp on how to be gentle with companies. And I think, too, that it's nice to have some training wheels or some gutters in the bowling lane to just help you. That's more for newer growers, because they are a bit newer to those crops.
00:48:23
Speaker
But now commercially, I never think about that because I know how to push that from the bottom. And they even make trays that are pushable. Like you can pop trays that you can pop them out. Commercially, you just know to handle certain crops more gently. But for homeowners that may be just getting started, yeah, that's mostly advice for them to get those transplants started and keep them growing. One last thing that I see people ask me.
00:48:49
Speaker
So when you're putting in transplants, we're, we're talking about something pretty small, right? Like we're not talking about, I guess, technically a large gallon size, big shrub is a technically a transplant. But I think for the spirit of this episode, we're talking about something, something small, you know, you may be able to hold two or three in your hand at one time kind of thing. Do not rip apart that root system. Even if it's something that, you know, isn't super sensitive, like a cucurbit crop,
00:49:17
Speaker
I think that in our minds, a lot of people have planted larger things like shrubs and we were always taught, I remember my mom saying, you know, you got to kind of rough up the root system because they're usually root bound and they've been in those nursery pots for two years. Transplants are not that way. Like little transplants have only been in there for the perfect amount of weeks. But here's the greed portion. There's some greed in there. Okay. But wait, no, wait. Rank, you're going to confuse people. Let me get through this. I am going to confuse people.
00:49:47
Speaker
We're going to confuse them. For 99% of everything you're going to grow, do not disrupt that root system. Put it right in the ground the way it is if it's small. Now, what Ray is about to tell you is something like if you accidentally get two tomato seeds in the same tray. For six basil. For six basil. In one little cell. What are you doing? And that's a good point, Alexis. What would you do in this situation? Let's say you had three basil plants, which is pretty typical. Pick on basil. That'll come up in one cell pack or one cell.
00:50:17
Speaker
What would you do there? Would you snip? Because that's an option you can snip to and just leave one growing, or if you want to roll the dice, I guess you could try, but that's always a risk of breaking the plant. Yeah. So, um, I like to, uh, when I was in, sometimes I snip a lot of, uh, quote unquote brain surgery in the way of transplanting, uh, very tiny, tiny plants. Uh, so yeah, I, the way I seed and I'm growing like kind of larger quantities of plants.
Motivations and Cultural Significance of Home Gardening
00:50:45
Speaker
you, you'll ultimately always have like a couple cells that don't come up. Either they missed this and they got into the other cell or you just had a dud or something got, you know, eight, whatever. You always have a couple cells. So I usually leave, um, you know, if I've got a five cells that have a couple in each, I'll leave them until I know and I'll plug those in and I'll do some brain surgery out, you know, get out like my tiny little,
00:51:09
Speaker
Tool and I will pop them up when they're very small because when plants are small they rebound actually really quickly So even if you break off, there's only you know, half an inch of root there Even if you break off a little bit of it, it'll still rebound So they actually rebound better when they're tiny than when they're big And so I'll do that or if you have enough plants if you got as much as you need just snip them off Just make it life
00:51:33
Speaker
I was thinking more when you're buying, like I go to a greenhouse and let's say there's something that I want that I didn't grow transplants. I'm kind of greedy and I look for those cell trays of basil that have bonus basil in them.
00:51:45
Speaker
So I can do brain surgery on those. It's only for when I'm purchasing things. I'm like, Ooh, that one tray has three tomatoes per cell. If it's larger and you're buying it and you don't have the luxury of getting it when it's small, there are some plants that will be fine being ripped apart. Sometimes you may kill plants. Yeah. As Alexis is saying, you're just kind of rolling the dice, even though a dad is thrifty over here.
00:52:09
Speaker
I'm pretty thrifty if I'm purchasing plants because I don't know about you guys but plants have gotten expensive transplants when you go to purchase them. At local retail outlets I mean for good reason because you know it takes a lot of resources and media and stuff that has gotten more expensive I understand all of that but when tomatoes are like five bucks a plant.
00:52:30
Speaker
I had a local box store and I see that one of those round packs that you get from the local farm, you know, supplier has like three tomatoes in there. I'm going to do some, some brain surgery on this.
00:52:42
Speaker
I'm going to be separating those, but if I'm growing them myself, I generally don't, I'll snip, I'll snip them. If you're willing to lose some and then, you know, definitely by all means, I'm also, 90% of the time, do not mess up that root system. Yeah. And it's, and just like we said, we talked about with some of the, you know, vine crops and stuff being very sensitive, all the young roots are very sensitive in general. So the less disturbance you can have on those, the better.
00:53:07
Speaker
I find, so you don't set those back, but you know, we're talking about all these variables that we're controlling and maybe possibly purchasing some equipment to grow a good sturdy transplant at home. Why do people do this? I mean, why do you guys grow transplant? I mean, what's your motivation? Maybe we can wrap up with that. What is it? And I always love to hear from people why they're going to the trouble of growing transplants when you can go and purchase a few if you just have a small home garden. I mean, aside from saving some money.
00:53:34
Speaker
some money because that grow lot's obviously going to last more than one season. And if you're growing the quantity, you can definitely save money very quickly if you, if you need a pretty good quantity of plants, but one of the reasons, yeah, go ahead. Yeah. Well, no, you should keep going. No, no, I was just going to say that there's just certain things that maybe that you can't buy, but yeah, selection expands.
00:54:01
Speaker
Yeah, I can pick up the varieties that I want from the store and I don't, you know, I don't want the standard, you know, hybrid better boy or whatever the new hybrid is that is everywhere. Mountain fresh or something. No shade to those. Go for it if you like those. I actually don't, for me personally, it's been really interesting. I've gotten into mostly starting like native perennials and woody plants and things.
00:54:31
Speaker
And, um, you know, they involve many of those involve like this process of getting them, uh, soaking them in water and, or keeping them cold for a long period of time, ahead of time, you know, scarification stratification, those types of things. But the process of starting them is very, very similar to everything we've talked about here. And in that case, it is a, I can't find the types of things that I want locally or be like, it just is really, they're really expensive to have to buy. If you want a bunch to do kind of like a.
00:55:01
Speaker
You know, if I, if I wanted to get like 40 milkweed plants, I can buy a seed, a thing, a thing of seed and some stuff for, you know, 10 bucks total, maybe materials. Whereas the 40 of those, I mean, you're talking hundreds of dollars probably. So that, I mean, those are the big reasons for me, but I think also.
00:55:20
Speaker
there is something really beautiful and poetic about the seed starting time of year and how it's like we're in the middle of this cold, it represents this like promise, the seed, the seed has everything that needs for the future. Like there really is something really beautiful about that cycle and not only that, but that the seed is not the beginning, it's the product of all the things that happened in the plant last year that created that seed.
00:55:48
Speaker
And like this, I don't know, there is something really special about that.
00:55:54
Speaker
And I think it does, there is this shared experience of the mania, cabin fever of cold weather that is so human. Look, we have heat. Imagine if you didn't have heat and it was just sort of like keeping a fire going, imagine how excited you'd be for spring. And I'm pretty excited as it is. I do it for that reason too, because it is kind of insane. In some ways it's kind of insane to have all this stuff set up and do this and the water and all these things. But we're crazy about plants.
00:56:24
Speaker
And you have a cool, and I find that I like the glow in my office, where I'd like a little grow lab, six foot wide grow lab, four tiered kind of thing. And it produces this glow. And I don't know why I like that so much at night. My office is the bright office. It still has the lights going because I'm trying to run them 12, 13, 14 hours. So yeah, but it's something cool, having something growing at that time of year.
00:56:46
Speaker
In mid-March, you've got, you know, you've seeded things in some cases and you have little growing things at a time of year where the long winter is still going on. So I enjoy that too, Brett. I do like having growing things. It just represents that you're still making plans. And as long as you're still making plans, I mean, you still have hope. And I'm not trying to get too down to two hour far of an emotional track here, but like that's what it represents to me is that
00:57:09
Speaker
I'm still thinking about, okay, in a month or two or three or whatever, I'm still gonna be here doing these things. And there's something really, in a time where it can be really easy to get down about all the things that are happening, it does represent. And I think that's why it's so important to so many refugee communities and just migrant communities in general that do all this gardening and do all this stuff. You see this common thread of them, a lot of them doing gardening and growing stuff. And if they have,
00:57:37
Speaker
A porch window, they're going to put some seeds in some stuff at the porch window and grow it. And it just represents that kind of restarting hope, rebirth cycle kind of thing, I think. Yeah. I love growing things. I mean, and you're growing things at a time of year where, you know, normally you may not be if you're a homeowner. So good stuff.
Future Topics and Podcast Engagement
00:58:00
Speaker
It seems like in the future we need to do an extension of this, you know, make me think about it. Propagation!
00:58:05
Speaker
Well, propagate and seed saving. I mean, it's even is its own huge topic and it goes along very well with this a little bit different time of year, maybe, but maybe mid summer, early summer when, you know, you can start the idea, but I love the seed saving stuff because I come from an area of long seed savers and some seeds you can save and some you probably shouldn't try to save, but that's a huge topic. I mean, you get into all kinds of, you know, sub topics when you talk about seed saving, but we used to end the season by, you know, saving some of the heirloom, like tomato varieties.
00:58:35
Speaker
Um, we would select, you know, reach mature, certain maturity level, but yeah. Yeah. It seems to go along with this, but it, some of your comments made me think about that, Brett. It kind of bookends the other end of the season for me is the seed saving on the other end. So yeah. Yeah, definitely.
00:58:53
Speaker
So we talked about light, temperature, media, a little bit of the techniques, making sure that you, you know, after you have stuff seeded, or sorry, you start off, you know, you got a plan, I want a six week old transplant, and I want to transplant it on date X, work back six weeks, and that's your seeding date.
00:59:10
Speaker
You go through all the steps using the different media stuff we talked about. You get that plant ready to go before you're ready to plant it out about a week to 10 days before you're ready to plant it out. You put it outside, let it harden off, adjust gradually to sunlight and temperature and all that kind of stuff, and then put it in the ground, ideally disturbing the roots as little as possible, making sure that you plant it to the correct depth, which is usually to the top of the soil ball with the top of the soil ball covered with soil.
00:59:41
Speaker
water it in well at the time of planting and then grow it in the ground, have fun, enjoy the thing. Watch it shoot up so fast. Yeah. Watch it have a 10 week head start on all the weeds, which is one of the reasons we do it. Yeah. But yeah, it really is a key part of a lot of production systems and ways of growing stuff, but it's also a good way to get connected with plants is earlier in the season, then you'll be able to get outside and mess with them.
01:00:11
Speaker
Does it sound like a decent recap? I think so. I love it. Yeah. All right. That's pretty good. Well, Alexis, you want to take us home? Yes, of course. Well, we thank you for being here with us today and listening to us be super excited about transplants. We hope you're super excited about growing some seeds for yourself, even if it's just something fun and gets you through the winter because that's for me, I totally agree.
01:00:35
Speaker
But you can leave us a review if you like hearing about transplants. If you want to hear about all kinds of different propagation and listen to Brett and I just get like super jacked about stratification of seeds, we can do that. Just tell us in the review. You guys rock. Let's hear about that. Let us know. It's super helpful. You can also shoot us an email with any ideas that you may have or questions that you may have. If you're like, I don't know what stratification is, please tell me more.
01:01:03
Speaker
but just in an email because, yeah, you can do that at hortculturepodcast.l.uky.edu. You can also shoot us a direct message, a DM, if you will, on Instagram, hortculturepodcast. If you'd like to see any videos of that brain surgery that we talked about, I actually think I have one on my phone. Maybe I'll post that about the snapdragons that I went a little crazy with so we can do that, cuttings, those kinds of things. So if you want to see more,
01:01:31
Speaker
on that please definitely let us know what you're into because we just talk about what we like and hopefully that's what you like but we hope that as we grow this podcast you will continue to grow with us and that you will join us next time have a great one y'all