Repotting seedlings

I started planning for my garden a little early this year. Because my husband and I moved into a new house over the winter, I wasn't sure how the new surroundings would affect my plants. I started sowing the seeds in a little plastic seedling greenhouse in our kitchen, and boy they have grown!

Okay, I admit it, this isn't the plant.

A lot of them have already grown past the point where they should have been repotted, but I've been busy unpacking and setting up the house. Since I didn't want to kill them before they even had a chance to really live, it came down to a do or die situation this weekend. . . at midnight.

In Virginia, the soil isn't ready yet for planting anything (it's still a little too cold and windy) and I need a few more weeks before moving them outside. I bought some larger seedling pots to house the new plants, in hopes of buying myself a little more time. 

My hero

These starter pots are a lot better for big seedlings, and are usually about the size of a 3-inch terra cotta pot. The seedlings were growing in a 1-inch plot of soil, so these pots will still run a little large for them. When you're repotting plants, it's usually best to move to a pot that is an inch bigger than the pot it was in previously (depending on the type of plant). This gives the plant room to grow it's roots, while still focusing on leafing and blooming. If you put it in too big of a pot, it'll spend all it's energy in root growing.

I was only able to find biodegradable pots in the size I needed, so I figured out how to work with both pots. Before you start working on anything, you'll want to trim off the connecting tops of the biodegradable pots. Then start soaking them in water so they'll be nice and wet when you need them.

Using the soil, get it wet enough to be moldable. You want it to be a little clay-like in your hands to make sure you can manipulate it properly. Work with the soil until you're able to get it up on the sides of the pots, leaving the middle part open.

If it's a little crumbly near the top that's okay. 

You just want the bottom part to have a good amount of soil.

Now that the containers are ready, you can start pulling the biodegradable pots out of the water and putting them into the larger containers. If there doesn't seem to be enough space, pull them out and get the soil just right.

First try: Failed! 

You'll notice that my biodegradable pots aren't really wet enough. When you're repotting, you want to have a lot of moisture in the soil and with the plant. Repotting is a very stressful event for a plant to go through and the wetter the process the better. After they're successfully potted, you can usually give them almost a whole week before they need to be watered. That does depend on the plant, so you'll want to look at what it requires. (You'll get better on the water/soil ratio the more you do this.)

When you're finished with the biodegradable pots, use a toothpick/fork/sharp tool and poke a few holes around the sides of the cardboard. (You only need a few, and don't poke the bottoms!) 

From here you can start adding soil and moving the plants over one by one. Make sure to be super careful and make sure not to bury them in too much dirt. You want the roots to have room to grow.

Roomy

And a beauty shot:

That's a lot of cucumber

After the plants are successfully repotted. Add a little bit of water to the top of the soil and move them into a sunny location. I did this at night (really coming in under the wire) so they had to wait for sun until the morning. I had to improvise with the plastic spoons and sharpies too. I couldn't find my popsicle sticks in my boxes and this had to be done. They actually don't look bad though, so I may keep them as long as the sharpie holds up.