04/27/2023
Today is a great day to harden off your plants that you may have started from seed.
What is hardening off?
In a nut shell, it is preparing your plants to live life outdoors. Think how every year as humans, we need to sort of harden off before we can handle the sun. Our melanin needs activated in our skin to protect us from the sun. If we spend too much time in the sun in the spring unprotected we get burned. So we are not hardened-off. š¤£
With plants, it's a similar concept in that they need to build up their keratin in thier leaves and learn how to regulate their stoma or pores in thier leaves. Once your young plant growing indoors have put on some leaves and the weather starts getting nice, it is time to start acclimating them to outside, aka, hardening off.
Follow these steps progressing every 2 days!!!!
1. Place young plants outdoor on the porch so they begin to experience indirect light and temperature/humidity fluctuation. Preferably full shade.
2. Place some plants in morning sun for a couple hours then return to shade.
3. Increase time in the sun by 2 hours or so each day until plant is in the sun all day from morning until night, or at least 8 hours.
This should take about a week to do. Our plants at Sprouted In Thyme are hardened off so you can plant as soon as you purchase unless otherwise instructed.