Caring for Your Young Seedings

Your seedlings are about a week old, and they were started indoors under lights. These are quick varieties, ready to cut around thirty days from seed, so you are roughly three weeks from your first salad. They are not quite ready for the garden today, and they should not sit in this little container for long either. Give them about a week to keep growing, a few days to get used to being outside, and then get them into a bed or a bigger pot.

Here is the whole plan in four steps.

1. Keep them happy for the first week. Set them somewhere bright, like a sunny windowsill or a spot outside with morning sun and afternoon shade. Keep the soil damp but not soggy, watering from the bottom when you can. Small seedlings dry out fast, so check them daily.

2. Harden them off for a few days. Before they move outside for good, let them adjust to real sun and wind. Set them out in a protected, partly shaded spot for a couple of hours the first day, then add an hour or two each day for three or four days. Bring them into shade if the afternoon turns hot. This keeps them from getting shocked when they go in the ground.

3. Transplant into a bed or a pot. Once hardened off, plant them where they will get good sun, in loose, rich soil or a container of potting mix. Give each plant six to twelve inches of room. Set the root ball level with the soil so the stem is not buried, and water at the base right after planting to settle the roots.

4. Water, then start cutting. Keep the soil evenly moist for the first week or two while the roots take hold. When the leaves are four to six inches tall, start harvesting the older outer leaves first and leave the center to keep growing. Never take more than a third of the plant at once. Cut every few days and the same plants will feed you for weeks.

A few notes: these are cool season greens, so fall is a great time to grow them here. They do not love hot afternoons, so a little shade in the heat helps. If a frost is coming and the plants are still small, a light row cover buys you time.

That is really all there is to it. Give them a week, ease them outside, get them planted, and you will be cutting your own salad before long.