Mrs. David's Garden Seeds®

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Harden Off

If you are transplanting garden plants, you will need to harden off the plants before you put them in your garden. What does that mean? Let's find out!

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Harden Off - 3/11/24-3/17/24

Monday, March 11, 2024

Good morning. Actually, it was a miserable night. I had a hard time getting to sleep even though I was exhausted from pulling orders until close to 10pm. I came inside, warmed up some late dinner, took a shower, and went to bed. Then I started thinking of all of the problems of the day and that is always a fun time, right?

I finally dozed off after midnight and woke back up at 3:30am. Same thing happened. Sometime after 4am I was able to sleep again for a bit. So it will be a long, tired feeling day.

Back to the farm. I have a ton of orders to ship out and many new orders to pull this morning so I have to get dressed and move on.

Two of our teen workers were absent today so poor Matt had to do a lot to fill in the gaps. David, Matt, and I worked until about 7:30pm trying to fill orders, and then we had to eat dinner. We had visitors and customers throughout the day. One family bought 17 of our strawberry plants so that was great. They actually thought they were taking them all but they missed one that was away from the others. So we have one strawberry plant that we grew from seed left. We have some beefsteak tomato, some roma tomato, grape tomato, and cherry tomato plants, but no more slicing plants. There are some various herb and pepper plants left as well.

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Harden Off

I am always amazed as I ring up our outdoor vegetable plants for customers and then tell them they will need to harden off the plants before planting because very few customers know what that means. David actually typed out instructions on how to harden off plants so this week, we will talk about it.

So what is it? Hardening off plants is when you allow a plant to get used to the idea of going from an indoor area such as your garage, home, shed, or greenhouse to being outdoors full time in wind, rain, coolness of spring, and full sun. Believe me, it can be hard on a plant to be out in the elements when all it has known is the warm protective feeling of being in a climate controlled greenhouse. It is not something that the plant can get used to in a matter of hours. The poor plant can go into a state of shock and can even die if you are not careful.

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Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Good morning. I had some better sleep last night but the dogs woke me up at 6:15am and David was already out of the house working on orders by then. I fed the cat and dogs and have been working on the computer. It promises to be another very long day. At least one of our teen helpers will not be here again today. We have some errands to run in town today.

Well, we accomplished most of our errands but the cafe right next to one of our banks caught on fire last night and the bank was closed. We will have to go back again tomorrow. We got back and worked on orders again until late. I went in and made some dinner after dark. The orders are never done. They just keep piling on.

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Harden Off

So you bought a plant from a local nursery or garden center. What now?

The method I use is to gradually introduce my plants to the outdoors by increasing the periods of time they stay outside.

I begin about a week before actual transplanting based on lunar planting. If the Lunar calendar says that August 3rd is the day to plant transplants, then I will back up 7 days from that day to start hardening off plants.

Below is the suggested practice. However, if, like me, you have to work then this process will not work for you.

Place plants in a sheltered, shady spot outdoors. Under a tree or even on your back porch is fine. Leave them for 3-4 hours and gradually increase the time spent outside by one to two hours per day.

Bring plants back indoors each night.

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Wednesday, March 13, 2024

This morning, I planted a lot of flower seeds in pots around the front of the property. I also cleaned out the fish pond and refilled the water. We had several customers while I was outside working.

The mailman came and then David and I left to go to the bank again today. The front door was open and large fans were blowing. It was loud in there and the smell of smoke was miserable.

The woman at the bank tried to justify the other employee not freezing a stolen card. I was not having that. Soon everyone in the place and outside knew my business because I got a little loud. We took care of the business there and deposited money in our new bank account after closing those accounts due to the Superbowl Sunday incident.

Then we stopped by Atascosa Garden Market for some gluten free cornmeal to use as a fertilizer or something like that for David. She was out but told us she sends people our way all of the time. That was so nice. She told us to come back next Friday for some.

Next we drove to Devine to GroMore Gardens and got some stuff.

Finally we came home and started doing orders again. Everyone left and we still did them. Then I came in to make dinner. We are both so tired. So much else is going on in our world.

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Harden Off

Continuing on from yesterday's harden off post...

After two to three days, move the plants from their shady spot into morning sun, return them to the shade in the afternoon.

I modify this a bit by putting my plants on a table on the patio that gets about three to four hours of morning sun. At first I will leave a protective covering on them.

Then after two or three days I will take this cover off. I will let them get the morning sun for a two more days. Then I will expose them to the morning and afternoon sun for two more days.

I have found that this practice works very well for the person who works and is not at home to take the plants in and out.

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Thursday, March 14, 2024

Can you believe it is already Thursday? This week has flown by and all I've done is fill orders and plant some seeds. This is the week of Spring Break in our area so sales and customers are actually way down and I still can't catch up! Yes, here in Texas, they always have spring break way before spring and it is usually chilly and wet. So far, this week has not been wet but it has been way too chilly to swim except for yesterday afternoon when it hit 90°!

This morning, the low was 71° around 4am. I was awake and asked Alexa. Then I fell back to sleep and woke up after 7am. Of course, it is due to the horrible time change but at least I am finally sleeping again. I got up and took the dogs outside and it is still dark!

I still have a lot of planting to do plus I need to make a meatloaf this morning for David. I keep staying out in Fulfillment until 7pm or 8pm and then we make something simple. By that time I am ravenous so this morning I will put that new meatloaf recipe I found that is keto. It is tasty. Then I will put it in the oven later on with some sweet potatoes. I boiled eggs for it last night.

I finished planting in all of the pots out here in the front as well as on my front porch by the house. Then I transplanted a lot of Wandering Jew plants into one of the troughs in the front. After that, I started weeding the two beds in front of the Farm Store. The snapdragons were almost done. Many of them were completely finished. Matt and Jon helped me. I planted a lot of zinnia seeds from the zinnia heads we harvested last fall. I gave them a good watering. I hope we have a good rain so they can grow soon.

It never did rain today. This evening, I baked the meatloaf, baked potatoes, carrots, and sweet potatoes. I sauteed asparagus from the garden. Dinner was delicious. It was nice to be inside instead of out in Fulfillment pulling orders after dark.

St. Patrick's Day Sale!

I just wrote newsletters for our weekend flash sale. The newsletters will go out at 8pm to all of our subscribers. Here are the details:

Spend $20 on flower seeds & get 12% off all individual flower seed packs starting at midnight tonight!

Use code FLOWER12 at checkout from 3/15 through midnight on 3/17 CST.

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Harden Off

Continuing on again...

After seven days, the plants should be able to handle sun all day and stay out at night, if temperatures stay around 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Keep an eye out that the soil doesn't dry out and bake the plants, if the weather is warm. Water as needed, especially if you are not getting much in the way of spring rains where you live. We normally don't get much because we are in South Central Texas. Every once in a while, we get a wet spring, but for the most part, we do not.

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Friday, March 15, 2024

It is now 4pm and this is my first chance to jump on here and say hi. It has been a very busy day with orders and customers. My day started around 2:15am when I woke up for no good reason. At 3am, I heard some rain. A few hours later, I awoke to some more rain. Then it stopped but stayed overcast all day long. It sprinkled for a bit a few hours ago but that was it. The weatherman is calling for storms until 9pm but I haven't seen any yet.

Our sale started at midnight and quite a few customers have taken advantage of the sale. It is on individual flower seeds only. You have to purchase at least $20 in flower seeds, not including tax or shipping and then you get 12% off of your total before taxes and shipping are added in. We have had several two, three, and four page orders of flower seeds today.

David took the puppies early this morning to be groomed. The puppies were yanked in front of him and not treated very nicely. He called and told me. Had I been there, I would have taken them back home but he left them. We will never go back to that place again. This is what happens when you hire people who hate their job. No animal lover would ever treat someone else's pets like that, especially right in front of their owner.

My roses are blooming already. I see on YouTube that it is snowing in a lot of the country. Here, it is spring break and lots of planting is going on. A lot of our fruit trees are in full bloom.

I have a lot more orders to pull but I finally got everything that was pulled into the mail. We have been sending two to three bags full of mail every single day this week.

After many more hours, all of the new orders were pulled and mailed and then I printed them again....I pulled orders until 6pm and then we went in and made tacos. We never did any big rain. Maybe tonight...

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Harden Off

Continuing on...

After seven to ten days your plants are ready to transplant into the ground or into a permanent pot outdoors. Try to transplant on a cloudy day if possible, and be sure to water well after planting.

You will have to develop your own system but the final objective is to be able to put your new plants in the ground without them dying. It may take several tries for you to get your own system down.

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Saturday, March 16, 2024

Every time I woke up in the night, it was not raining. However, when I took Ethel out, the deck is completely soaked so it rained. Alexa tells me it will rain again at 6:45am, in 20 minutes. Of course, it is still dark so who knows?

The rain started when I was out taking care of the chickens this morning. It poured hard and then there was a break. Then it poured hard and then a break of several hours. Now the sun is trying to come out. We had zero customers today because of the storm until 1:35pm. Now it is 2:11pm and we are closed. Also, since the gate is not opening until almost 10am, we have moved our opening time to 10am again on Saturdays. Believe me, it is easier to move the opening time than to try and fix that gate timer. I actually opened the store at 9am but there was no one. Why am I killing myself trying to get everything done by 9am to open? I have no help on the weekends.

Anyway, the gate was still open so an Amazon delivery driver came through. While I was signing for those packages, a truck came through with a family who just moved in down the road. They were so nice. They bought some plants and seeds. It was a pleasure visiting with them. The gate is now about to close. It is 2:45pm. The sun has come out but it should rain again good tonight.

Matt grilled burgers for tonight's Svengoolie movie. It was A Comedy of Terrors with Vincent Price, Boris Karloff, and Peter Lorre from 1963, the year my brother was born. I was three when it was made. Anyway, it was hilarious. We had never seen it before and we enjoyed it.

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Harden Off

Here are some tips to harden off your spring veggie plants:

• Start to harden off from seven to ten days before you want to plant your seedlings.
• The best way to start is by putting the plants in outdoor shade during the day and bringing them in at night.
• If the day is very windy or if it is below 50° Fahrenheit, do not put them out that day.
• Watering should be much less while you harden off seedlings but do not allow the seedlings to dry out.
  

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Sunday, March 17, 2024

Happy St. Patrick's Day. Yes, I am part Irish on my father's mother's side.

It rained in the night. We got 3/4 of an inch only. It stayed overcast all day long but no more rain fell. We had church and then came home and had leftovers for lunch. We have been filling orders and working for most of the afternoon. Also, I have been doing laundry. Fun times.

I went out at 4:15pm and collected eggs. Not much else going on.

Pecan Coffee Sale

At midnight tonight, we start our coffee sale. Save $2.95 on a pound of our pecan flavored coffees, either whole bean or ground with code COFFEE2 at checkout. This sale ends Thursday night at midnight (CST).

I noticed that we have some zinnias and some amaranth that I planted this past week coming up.

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Harden Off

Remember that you should never place plants that you get from a greenhouse outside as soon as you bring them home. Always give them time to get used to the harsh outdoors because they have been in a very protected environment with not much wind (fan) and no direct sun. They have not had sand or dirt blowing on them and they have not been bothered by bugs and outdoor animals. They have not been exposed to cold. They have had controlled watering, not heavy rain or lack of water. They need special care for the first week or so until they get used to being outside.

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Return from Harden Off to Year Five On The Farm

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