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Vegetable Transplants

Vegetable Transplants
The best way to get high quality, healthy, and true-to-name vegetable transplants is to grow your own. If, however, you choose to buy transplants from a nursery or garden center, here’s a guide to selecting and caring for transplants.

Which Vegetables Should I Plant?

If you are a first-time gardener, you may want to start with a few tomato plants, some peppers and some herbs. They are easy to grow and you’ll have plenty to pick throughout the season.

Selecting Healthy Plants

Choose transplants that have a dark green, healthy appearance. Generally, shorter, thicker transplants are much better than taller, skinny plants. Vegetable plants should not have flowers, as this will add to the stress of transplant shock. Be sure that the plants are free of any insect infestation or obvious disease.

tomato plant transplant

Caring for Transplants

If you can’t transplant your new seedlings immediately, be sure that the roots are kept moist, and limit the plants’ exposure to direct sunlight and windy conditions.

Transplanting Vegetables

Transplants should have moist roots when transplanting. Be careful not to disturb the roots, as the tiny root hairs are very fragile and are very important in supplying the life-giving water and nutrients to the plant. The exception would be if you could only procure transplants that are “root bound” with a thick bundle of roots winding around the root ball. In that case, carefully unbundle the root mass, without tearing the roots, if possible.
Vegetable Transplants

Transplant Depth

Most transplants can be planted to a depth equal to the depth of the roots in the container; however, tomato and pepper transplants will almost always perform better if planted deeper. These transplants can be planted up to their first true leaves. The stems will generate additional roots very quickly. Deeper planted tomatoes and peppers will soon surpass shallow planted transplants, and will develop better root systems and be much healthier all season long.

Water New Transplants

Newly transplanted vegetable plants should be watered thoroughly for several days to help the roots more quickly establish in the garden. A diluted starter fertilizer, high in phosphorous, will also help root development. Be careful not to over feed new transplants; tender seedlings can easily be “burnt” by overfeeding. And, early feeding will often cause more foliage development and my actually suppress flower and fruit development. If you want to add some nutrients at transplant time, dehydrated cow manure can be used sparingly, or compost can be added to the planting hole.

Mulch

Mulching immediately after transplanting will help retain moisture in the root area, and will suppress nutrient and water robbing weeds.

Additional Protection

If you’ve ever had tomato cut worms, or if you have hungry rabbits in the area, you may want to shield your new transplants with small metal or paper cylinders (to keep cut worms at bay) or small wire cages (to deter rabbits and birds).
Vegetable Transplants

Variety Identification

Now is a good time to identify your plants, especially if you’re growing several varieties and you want to compare results throughout the season. Use a waterproof marker to make plant labels or paint the plant name on a smooth rock that can be placed near the plant for identification. The small plant labels that usually come with transplants will soon be lost in the foliage and mulch; so make big plant identification markers now if you want to know what’s what later in the season.

Keep Notes

Keep good notes on the performance of your vegetable transplants so that you’ll have some good information to help you have an even better garden next year.

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California Prop 65 Information

www.p65warnings.ca.gov

This warning pertains to the California Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986 commonly referred to as Proposition 65 which requires warnings about chemicals known to cause cancer or birth defects or other reproductive harm. For more than thirty years this law has required businesses selling products in the State of California that may expose persons to chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm to provide special warnings. The Proposition 65 regulations have recently changed and effective August 30, 2018, new requirements apply to the content and location of certain Proposition 65 warnings. In response to these changes, Schiller Grounds Care, Inc. is providing the warning you see on the product web page you viewed prior to linking to this explanation. The company has the same warning on the product associated with that product web page. The regulatory agency in the State of California responsible for Proposition 65 has made additional information about Proposition 65 available on its web page: https://oehha.ca.gov/propostion-65.

The company is also party to a 1995 consent decree entered into together with many other manufacturers of covered products (as defined in the consent decree) and for those products the company has, in addition to the warning referred to above, also included the Proposition 65 warning mandated by the consent decree in the owner’s/operator’s manual for the covered product.

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