I have recently been transplanted. Have transplanted myself more accurately. I’ve not only physically moved, I have found and am finding new paths for my brain and my spirit. And while I believe I know where I come from, my roots are not solid there. Not only there. I have always found my roots in the country earth regardless of my geographical location. I am solidly planted where my feet can wander bare through the trees, across the grass and stones and into the water. I could be anywhere and this truth would hold.

I’m not one for starting things early. Not in life and not in my garden. Caring for seedlings isn’t something that’s seemed very feasible in a small house with four kids. Without space, and good space at that (ie; proper light and heat), starting seedlings indoors can be a frustrating endeavour. I know this one. They take a long time to germinate without the right heat and they get all long in the stem searching for enough light once they do. Maybe I’m just bad at timing. But I’m always in there trying again, so I gave it go this year with cayenne peppers, broccoli, tomatoes, peas and beans. Mostly I wanted to use up all my old seed.

I guess for me following a plant’s schedule isn’t always easy. Sometimes they’re ready before I am and they can get a bit stuck. Roots get bound, stems get too long and the plants fall over. Not an impossible situation, I’ve transplanted lots of leggy, root-bound seedlings, but it’s not ideal and worth avoiding, I think. I have no rules for transplanting personally. No, “when the plant is this high it’s time to plant it out” or “when it has this many leaves”. Maybe I should but gardening is an area of my life where I feel rules are for suckers. (Okay, I tend to feel this way in most areas of my life, but really, why let ourselves be boxed in by status quo?) I can’t avoid the rules of nature though. When most plants freeze, they die so transplanting 4″ tall tomato seedlings outside in August isn’t going to get me a harvest.

Last year I got excellent cayenne seedlings from Burt’s Greenhouse and they produced wonderfully. I saved the seeds and am growing them again this year. They’ve been through some serious weather as tiny seedlings germinating in an egg carton, and the nights when they first went into the ground were still a bit cold for peppers (which might inhibit the plant’s ability to set fruit later on I hear). I probably would have been better off putting them into pots to grow bigger before putting them in the ground. After a couple weeks these little guys are finally starting to show some solid growth. The weather’s warmed up considerably and I’ve kept them watered regularly. So they’ve had a rough start and many did not survive. If I’m lucky I’ll end up with 8 plants and then if I’m really lucky I’ll get lots of cayenne peppers from them.

My tomatoes started out very well in their cell tray with almost 100% germination. I consider this pretty good on approximately 8 year old seeds. I probably left them a bit too long in their cell tray though. They were definitely getting too big and the leaves were starting to yellow. I got them into 4” pots, briefly. Half of them were only in pots for a few days before I put them in the ground. I’ve still got a couple in pots, waiting for me to find space for them.

My broccoli have been, comparatively, superstars. They started in tiny little pots – bigger than a cell pack, smaller than a 4” pot. After waiting too long, letting them get nice and leggy, I transferred them 4” pots and they grew into nice strong seedlings. I’ve put the bulk of them into a hayfield and the rest into my victory garden. Fingers crossed for the hayfield as I believe I’ll be facing a summer long battle with spit bugs and it’s basically an experiment of planting directly into the field without tilling. (More on that in another post – essentially, I rolled out a round bale’s worth of straw, made hollows for the plants, scooped composted manure into each hollow and planted.) I’ve mulched right up around the base of each plant and luckily, it rained immediately after I finished putting them in so I didn’t need to worry about carting water to them (there’s no water source at that spot). After 2 days, they’re still alive and the soil they’re in is still damp. Some are doing better than others, but even the sad looking ones seem to have a strong leaf growing up between the droopy ones. I remain optimistic. My victory garden broccoli is coming along wonderfully with barely a wilted leaf after transplanting.

My peas, after what seemed a long struggle, are also superstars. Like my cayennes they went through some crazy weather as seedlings. Knowing peas can tolerate cooler weather I wasn’t worried about starting them early. I got excellent germination and the seedlings grew tall in no time. Too tall, too fast actually – I was not prepared (again). Peas have those little tendrils too that wrap around whatever they can, including other plants, so untangling was a big part of transplanting. I got them into the ground in a beautiful spiral pattern. I used maple branches to string them up so they can climb and mulched them nice and heavy, like I do. Then it snowed in May. For a while they looked pretty sad – bent stems, yellowing leaves. Thankfully, because building that pea spiral was a fair amount of work, they have rebounded with a vengeance. Most of the plants now stand over a foot tall, merrily climbing up their homemade trellis. And they’re even starting to flower.

And as for the beans I started? Not a single one survived. I planted two varieties. One, not a single bean germinated. They all rotted in the soil. The other, a handful managed to germinate and none have survived. So it’s not a year for those beans. And no bean transplanting. I have another crop doing wonderfully in my victory garden now and they have their own story.

The sloppiest aspect for me this year has been the hardening off. Normally and ideally, plants like a slow transition into the outdoors they’ll be living in. Seedlings need to be acclimatized or the shock of suddenly being outdoors could kill them. This is where the real babying comes in. Moving seedlings outside in the morning and back inside at night for a few days, at least, allows the plants to get used to their new conditions so they can survive the transition. This is a fairly crucial step actually and I try to follow it. Starting and transplanting seedlings can be a lot of work and planning and it’s pretty discouraging to lose a crop because I wasn’t patient enough to acclimatize them properly. Forgetting your trays outside though is a great way to know if the plants are ready. If they make it through the night, they’ll probably survive.

What I realize, at the end of this, is how little I know. Start seeds in trays or pots inside then plant them outside when they seem ready. That’s the basics but there’s so much more I could learn and do better.

I like giving plants a new home; room to breathe and to claim their space. What are we transplanting when we move a plant from one pot to another or into its forever soil home? Do we give a bit of ourselves into what we grow? I like to think we do. A transfer of energy. It’s not just a physical transplant, moving from one spot to another, but a mental/emotional/spiritual one, moving from one paradigm to another. If we reject our paradigm and the space it grew in is a new physical location enough? Do we automatically adjust ourselves internally to our new environment? I still marvel at a seedling’s ability to be uprooted and put into a new environment and survive so well. No existential crisis there. As our world changes that adaptability becomes crucial to our survival. We won’t be transplanting ourselves, the world is doing it for us. And are we digging in to what we know, clinging to our comfort zones or do we shift and work with what we have? I get super frustrated with humans’ inability to alter their status quo. If someone says they can’t do something, I agree – not with that attitude you can’t. Why limit your life? You don’t have to physically transplant. Sometimes all it takes is opening a small crack in your mind to let the light in (Leonard Cohen anyone?). Take a chance on a new space, a new way – maybe for a day, maybe forever. Transplant yourself and just grow.