We finally managed to string together some nice spring days, and the extended forecast looks promising, so yesterday I brought up all my flower seedlings from the basement to introduce them to the sun. They will sit outside every day for the next week or so until they can handle full sun. This “hardening off” process gets the leaves accustomed to the sun’s intensity. If you just stick indoor-grown plants in the sun right away, the leaves will burn and possibly even fall off which will weaken your plants as they won’t be able to take in the proper amount of light and nutrients.
In the old days I used to have to move all the flats in and out of the shade and sun all day long which was exhausting. Thankfully my little pop-up greenhouses came with shade cloths, so for the first few days I let them get early morning sun and then cover them with shade cloth from about 11am to 3pm. Then each day I trim off some time on each end of those 4 hours until the plants can tolerate being outside all day without any shade protection. That’s when I know it’s time to plant them in my flowerbeds.
Some of my zinnias and marigolds are behind schedule because I started them a week or two later than usual. The temperatures outside were in the 40s (F) with lows in the teens for much of April, so there was no use being in a hurry.
My petunias, nictotianas and salvias were started at their normal times in late February and March when I had no idea that our spring weather was going to be so fickle. They are bursting out of their packs and ready to go (other than needing to be hardened off like the rest of the plants). This is a view of them inside one of the pop-up greenhouses:
Those flowers seedlings may be ready, but I’m not. All the cold weather in April and then the record rainfall we’ve had in May have made it difficult to get outside and pull weeds and cultivate the flowerbeds.
As you can see, I have my work cut out for me:
