Hardening Off Seedlings

May 8

The threat of freeze is finally over here in MN and that means I can soon plant my seedlings out in our garden! But before I am able to do that I need to harden them off so they are not shocked by the natural conditions.

Hardening them off basically means gradually exposing them to outside world. I do this for about a week or two before planting them. Timing is dependent on the weather conditions and how that effects us getting the garden ready for the seedlings. The past couple of weeks had been extremely cold and rainy so we haven’t been able to get it set up yet this season but will be very soon.

I started bringing my seedlings outside on Friday, I choose to start near a weekend so that by the weekdays, when I am more often not around the entire day, the seedlings are ready for longer outside exposure.

On the first day I started later in the afternoon around 1 or 2 when it was warm and I only left my precious little seedlings out for 1 hour. Since then, I have increased the time outside each day by an hour and will do this until they have been out a full day, then continue to leave them outside during the day until the garden is ready.

Luckily during the hours the seedlings are out it has not been extremely sunny and we haven’t gotten any rain. I do not put them out in direct sun or the rain. I place them on our patio tables or benches to keep them away from critters, during the day that is mostly our own dogs and cat (who sleeps all day).

I keep the seedlings in a greenhouse at night that I just recently moved from indoors (see my post on my indoor greenhouse set up). This helps to protect them from any animals and weather, it is still on the cooler side in the evenings here. Products linked are my favorites or highly recommended for each project. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you. See something you like? Click it! It helps support the amazing content on this site.

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Xoxo, B