When Transplants Aren't the Best

[macmex]

Every spring stores and garden centers brim with plants for local gardeners. There are racks and racks of little plants, ready to stick into the garden. What gardener can resist browsing through the tomatoes and peppers? Recently I browsed a local box store and was quite impressed with their selection of hot peppers. Many of these transplants are great, but did you know that transplants aren’t always the best? Sometimes seeds are a far better option.

When are transplants advantageous?

Even though I usually prefer growing from seed,  there are times that I do appreciate being able to obtain transplants. For example, not everyone has a suitable arrangement for growing seeds indoors. Also some crops, such as eggplant, tomatoes and peppers are best started indoors and transplanted outside at around 6-8 weeks of age.  They transplant well and are really high producers per capita, meaning a single plant can produce a whole lot. Even when I grow these crops from seed, I usually put them into the garden as transplants, having started them well before the date of the average last frost.


These transplants, ready to go in the garden. Tomatoes and peppers are often good candidates for transplant.

Even an ardent seed lover will sometimes pick up a transplant.

Even an ardent seed lover will sometimes pick up a transplant, especially if they’ve suffered a set back from frost, pests or flooding and there isn’t time to start from seed. Additionally, when visiting a garden center, one might discover a transplant of a great variety and decide to try it out “at the last moment.” Still, I believe that today’s new gardeners are often too inclined to go with transplants instead of seeds.

Here are five reasons why transplants often aren’t the best way to  go.

• Anything which grows from a large seed is likely to do better if planted directly in the garden.
• Transplant shock:  Any time a plant is moved from a pot to the garden there is some degree of shock. This is in part because the roots are disturbed and its environment changed. Once moved, the plant will often just sit there for several days, before it resumes growth. You can’t see it, but it’s reestablishing its root system and adjusting to the new environment.
• Sunburn:  Many transplants are raised behind glass or under artificial light. They require time to build resistance to the sun’s UV rays, otherwise they will burn, their leaves will turn white and they will die. Transitioning such a plant takes up to a week, just to avoid KILLING it. On the other hand, this entire process can be skipped by planting the seeds directly in the garden.



•  Beans can sometimes sprout in as little as five days from planting.
•  Some things only transplant reasonably well for a couple of days after germination. After that, they are severely shocked or killed by having their roots disturbed. Our feature photo is of okra transplants. Upon sprouting I would only give okra plants about 3 days before they will become too sensitive to transplant and be worth planting. The ones in the photo have been up for about a week.

What are your thoughts on transplants?

[chrysanthemum]

Good information, Macmex. Thanks for taking the time to post that.

I love starting plants from seed and producing my own transplants. I’ve always done tomatoes and peppers as transplants, both in my native Virginia and currently in Texas. (Actually the first spring I lived in Texas, I tried direct seeding. The plants grew great, but by the time they were ready to flower, it was too hot for the pollen to be viable. I quickly learned that my long gardening season was really two shorter ones, and I needed to grow big transplants to get in the ground as soon as it was warm enough.)

Since moving this far south, I’ve found it beneficial to do more types of plants as transplants (cucumbers, zucchini, lettuce, beets, even okra). I think the top layer of my soil can dry out so quickly here that it’s much harder for me to germinate by direct seeding, so if I need to be careful with the number of seeds I use, it’s better to transplant. I still do direct seed when I can (especially because I’m not a big fan of potting up, and I don’t want to do it more than necessary), but I tend to presoak or even presprout seeds like beans and peas, or okra and corn to encourage better germination.

One thing that I have found beneficial for transplants down here is using “nursery bags” instead of pots. The ones I have are supposedly biodegradeable, but they don’t break down quickly. The advantage for me using them is that if I use them for my transplants but can’t get them in the garden when originally planned, they don’t really become root bound. The roots grow through the bag but are often pruned by the air, and more feeder roots develop inside. This was really helpful to me last year when my plants went in the ground two to three weeks later than I had originally anticipated because of some unusually cool nights. I had some pretty large transplants that were well hardened off, and by just planting the whole bag, they really didn’t have trouble with transplant shock. (It’s the same idea as peat pots, I suppose, but much more economical, and they hold up better than trying to make paper pots.)

My husband and I needed to pick up some supplies for a home improvement project the other day, and while we were shopping, I spotted some peppers and tomatoes. I don’t remember what the peppers cost, but the tomato plants were $20.00 for one plant. Granted it was a pretty large plant, but I was shocked. I suppose it’s a market for a person who just wants to grow one plant or something. I pointed out the price to my husband and said, “Just think how many seed packets I could buy for that price.” Granted there’s some expense in seed starting supplies, but I’m really thankful that I saw my mother growing all her garden plants from seed as a child and just figured out how to make that work when I finally had a place for a garden.

[john]

I agree with everything you said Mac, I feel the same way.
I thought of a few other reasons why I would consider starting something inside as a transplant.
1. The seed is very small. ex: celery
2. The seed takes a long time to germinate. ex: parsley
3. Also some seeds have very detailed germination requirements. For example some seeds require sunlight to germinate best. So they need to be planted on the soil surface. Impatiens would be one plant that falls into this category. It would be very difficult to keep the soil surface consistently moist so that they could germinate in a garden direct sow situation. Spinach requires soil that is below 70 degrees to germinate in high percentages. (I am not saying I would ever start spinach inside I am just using it as an example) Another example would be Giant Carolina Cross watermelons which require very warm soil too germinate. Perhaps 85 degrees would be ideal. Much cooler than 75 and the seed will rot.

[heavyhitterokra]

That just floors me every time I see okra plants for sale in those little pots at the garden center.  Being how you should never grow two plants that close together, that means that all but the strongest one should get pinched back. At those prices, ($3.78 per container) that's going to end up being about $4.00 per okra seed (after tax). The tax on plants here is eleven cents on the dollar.  So the plant in the photo above would actually cost you about $4.20 per seed.

At 10 cents per seed, you could plant 42 okra seeds for roughly the same price you'd be paying for just one potted okra plant. Not to mention that those plants don't appear to be more than 10 days old.  Someone put very little effort into that project for the $4.10 price increase.  Talk about your basic value-added agriculture!  My ethics wouldn't allow me do a thing like that and still feel okay about it.

[macmex]

What bothers me even more is that somehow we have a whole lot of new gardeners out there that have swallowed the idea that one simply "has to" grow by purchasing transplants (of everything). I've even seen bush beans and sweet corn being sold as transplants!

[heavyhitterokra]

I had forgotten about the potted corn plants, that's even worse than the potted okra plants.

I had someone call me yesterday to ask if it was time to set out the tomato plants they had purchased. I said, "Probably not until May 1st, if you want to be safe, and no earlier than Tax Day if you're a real gambler."

[chrysanthemum]

I occasionally watch some gardening videos from MIGardener, and I noticed one today on the sidebar, the title of which made me think of this thread. It’s more negative in tone than what I’ve seen from this channel before, but it does have some good information that would fit well here, so I thought I’d post a link.

[heavyhitterokra]

That was sage advice. Thanks for sharing that video. It seems like garden centers get less and less ethical with each passing year.  Which reminds me, if any of you guys can possibly make it to the May 1st green country seed savers meeting this Sunday at 2:00 pm at Saint Basil's in Tahlequah, we'll be swapping some very healthy tomato plants to anyone who might be able to use some.  Not to mention, there are always good seeds to trade there as well.