OK, so we’re going to talk about our average day with our seedlings and young plants. Not those big, exciting transplanting and sowing days. Rather, the average, boring every day. And we do “touch” our plants every day!
The biggest thing we’re observing is the soil. If it looks damp or well watered, we do nothing. But, if the soil is looking pretty dry, we’ll usually test it with our finger. If it feels moist, we do nothing. But, if that soil looks dry and feels dry, it’s time to water those plants!
If we have some six packs or pots that are dry and some that are still damp, we’ll often mix-n-match our plants so we can get an “all dry” tray. Since we use bottom watering techniques, we want to make sure all the plants in a tray are needing that water. If you don’t do this, some of your plants can become over watered and others will be just right.
We’ll also give our plants a once over, visually. What we’re looking for are changes to the leaves, colors that aren’t green, leaf curling or anything else that looks abnormal. We ignore the plant’s cotyledon (the very first greenery you see), as this almost always falls off. But, we also observe any new growth and make sure the plant is still developing.
In almost all cases if we see something, we do nothing at that moment. We want to observe any of these changes over time, but we also want to notice anything that might be happening as early as possible. We want to make sure any problems we’re addressing are “real” and “current” problems, not past problems the plant has had. The need for intervention of any kind will be demonstrated over time.
If we have any hardening off to do, we’ll get that going. We organize our plants on our grow tables so it’s easy for us to remember what we’re working with. If we have multiple trays at different stages of hardening off, we try to organize these differently so we remember. If you struggle with mental notes, feel free to use an item as a “flag” to help you remember things.
Then, we’ll visit our seedlings. Again, we’ll water any of the soil that looks dry. Often, we only end up watering a partial tray or a few cells and not the entire tray. If we notice any algae growing, we’ll open up the vents or take off the humidity dome for a few hours. We also make metal notes of any plants that are ready for transplanting up, mostly so we know what our weekend transplanting schedule will look like.
These days aren’t the most exciting in gardening, but it’s the every day work that makes the difference! That’s pretty much the stuff we’re doing every day and it’s a lot of words to say, “Not much!”
