Maryland Grows

You won’t find a lot of experienced gardeners—at least those who are honest with themselves—talking about “rules” in gardening. That’s because, strictly speaking, there are very few of them. There are certainly guidelines, which are created through a combination of experimentation, synthesis of results, lots of mistakes and corrections, and effective communication of principles. There’s also a lot of bad advice out there, which you can weed out in simple ways (try using “Extension” as part of your web searches) or by disregarding those helpful nuggets that use only anecdote or tradition as rationales. (“This happened to me once, so it must always be true!” “My grandmother always said…”) Personally, I think you can also ignore pundits who declare rules without exceptions. There are always exceptions.

Or maybe I’m saying that because I just broke a rule. It’s May, so time for hardening off seedlings. The guideline for hardening off is to introduce your young plants to the outdoors gradually. Carry your tray full of pots outside and put them in a sheltered spot (out of the wind and sun). Give them a few hours of outdoor conditions and then bring them inside again. Next day, lengthen the time outdoors. Over a week, expose the plants to more sun and some light breezes. Leave them outside overnight on the last few nights before you plant them in the garden. This way, they don’t get shocked by a sudden change in exposure, and they will settle into their new life more readily. Failure to make this gradual transition could result in a serious growth setback, or even in death. (Of the plant. You’ll be fine, I hope.)

This is all great advice and very doable, except when you’re growing about 70 pepper transplants for your own garden and for two Master Gardener programs. That makes for seven heavy trays of plants up to 18 inches tall that need to be carried in and out of the house repeatedly. Also, the weather just made a sudden shift from “Oh, guess I still need to keep sweaters handy” to “Where the heck are my shorts?” and I’m probably going to break another “rule,” the one that urges caution in planting tender plants before Mother’s Day.

So I decided that the previous weekend’s marathon outdoor repotting session counted as exposure to sunny conditions, and that my plants could now go out and stay out. The seedling lights are off (except for the tomatoes, tomatillos and eggplants that were seeded much later than the peppers and are still babies). The peppers are just going to have to face the world.

I’m not crazy, though. I do still have guidelines.

• The shelf most of the plants are on is in a sheltered spot, away from prevailing winds and getting sun only part of the day. I can move it so they get more exposure as time goes on. I’ll rotate the trays so each plant gets some sun. Or I’ll just put them all out on the floor of the deck.
• I’m covering the plants with row cover for the first couple of nights at least.
• These are all good-sized, healthy plants, not weak little starts still establishing root systems.
• I’m checking them every day and watering as necessary.
• Most importantly, I’m continuing to check the weather forecast, both short-term (keeping an eye on rain and cooler temperatures this weekend) and long-term (does planting next week still make sense, or are we getting one of those mid-May temperature plunges?). I could still bring the plants inside again if needed.
• To the best of my ability, I will try to plant them in the ground (in the gardens I have control over) on a day that’s not super-hot or very cool, maybe before a gentle rain or at least some clouds, without a hurricane blowing. Doesn’t that sound nice? I’d like to stretch out my roots under those conditions. If they exist.

This may be the first year ever that I’ll plant peppers before tomatoes, but tomatoes were kind of an afterthought to the pepperpalooza commitment, and I don’t like having to deal with tomato trees, so I started them very late. Tomatoes usually tolerate iffy spring weather better than peppers do, but so it goes. Another rule broken!

Even if you are a beginning gardener, you don’t need to follow every rule someone lays down for you. Just try to learn as much as you can about how plants work, use common sense, and accept that sometimes everything will go wrong. It’s a learning experience! But chances are, if you try to give your plants the most sensible help you can, they will reward you.

By Erica Smith, Montgomery County Master Gardener. Read more posts by Erica.