Memorial Day weekend is traditionally the time when gardeners buy plants to transplant into their gardens.
Most plants sold in garden centers, especially the small plants in trays, have spent their whole lives growing under glass in a greenhouse. As a result, they are quite tender and not always able to handle the conditions outdoors.
The tips of the leaves on these tomato plants show symptoms of sunburn.
You can help your new plants get off to a good start by acclimating them to your garden. The horticultural term for this is “hardening off”.
Here’s what I do with new plants: After bringing them home, I water them and set them in a sheltered area under partial shade for the first day.
On the second day, they get moved to a spot that gets a couple hours of direct sunlight; the rest of the day they’re back in partial shade. Each day after that, I expose the plants to another additional couple of hours of direct sunlight until they get full sun for an entire day. I usually stretch the process out over four to seven days, depending on the condition of the plant.
By the time the conditioning period is done, the plants are tough enough to handle the sun, wind and rain.
If you don’t have days to wait before planting, even a couple days of hardening off is better than nothing.
Bob