Knowing when to transplant seedlings outdoors in the Pacific Northwest is part science, part weather-watching, and part learning from the flat of tomatoes you killed in late April. Here’s how to time it right without losing your whole spring to one cold night.
I killed a flat of tomatoes once by putting them straight outside. Full sun, first day, two hours. This is how to not do that. Hardening off seedlings takes about ten days and a little patience, which is the hard part.
I lost a whole flat of tomato seedlings to hardening off once. Not to frost, not to slugs, just to one overconfident afternoon in April. Here’s how to do it right, cheap, with whatever you already have in the garage.
Burying your tomato transplants deep gives them a massive root system boost with zero extra cost. Here’s how to do it right, and why leggy seedlings are actually an advantage.
Burying tomatoes deep sounds wrong the first time you do it. Turns out it’s one of the easiest ways to get a stronger, more productive plant, and it costs nothing extra. Here’s how I do it in Redmond every May.
In zone 8b, tomatoes want soil that’s consistently 60 degrees before transplanting, and April in Redmond almost never gets you there. Here’s how to check, how to speed it up a little, and why the calendar is not your friend.
April in Redmond feels like spring but the soil hasn’t gotten the memo yet. Here’s why rushing your tomato transplants costs you time instead of saving it, and the one number worth checking before you dig that hole.