For you in-ground gardeners. If your transplants are looking a little rough around the edges, it can be a little bit alarming to the newer gardener. Worry not!
Transplanting into the ground can be rough on your little seedlings. Getting used to a whole new environment, radically different from their previous one, can cause significant stress on your plants. This can cause them to whiten up and show what sort of looks like sun stress.
You might have heard of the term “transplant shock.” That’s exactly what this is!
We recommend hitting your plants with a fast-acting, water soluble fertilizer soon after transplanting. Granular fertilizers and compost are great and all, but they aren’t what you’d call “immediately available” to your plants. Only water soluble fertilizers have the immediate power to pick your plants up and get them going in the right direction again.
We use this “two prong” fertilization approach in almost all of our gardens. It’s often not enough to do one or the other. Compost and granular ferts are the “long game” whereas water soluble ferts are the “short game.”
If your plants are looking a bit rough after their transplant, definitely think about hitting them with a water soluble fertilizer. It will often change things in a matter of a couple days!
