Allotments 4 All

Do you really stick to the rules at this time of year?

Daughter's stuck in bed so looking after these for her. Or that was the idea!

Put them out from cold 'house in yesterday's rain & the leaves have melted together. I'm leaving!!

Run for cover Tim ;D

the term 'hardening off' actually refers to the outer layer (cuticle or epidermis) of the plant, a bit like newly formed skin after a wound, needs a bit of sun and wind to strengthen the tissue and form it's waxy weatherproof coat. they should recover though, try not to get foliage wet??

I usualy have enough/too much to harden off to do it 'by the book' at this time of year. After about a week of shifting things in and out of the greenhouse I get fed up with it and start leaving things out to get on with it!

People think the business of hardening off centres on protecting plants from frost/cold at night, but tonybloke is spot on, its more about aclimatisation and toughening the plants up for life outdoors. If you simply decided to chuck things outside after being grown in a nice warm sheltered greenhouse, the colder conditions might not affect them, but strong sun, wind, heavy rain could cause some serious damage, leaving the plants vunerable to pest attack (primarily slugs and snails).

When I am short on time i often make use of my plastic mini greenhouse and/or cold frame, moving from greenhouse to mini greenhouse (first closed then open) to coldframe (again at first closed then open). The plants can then be put out with little worry. If I am really short of time (as is the case this year) I omit the cold frame stage and just leave the plants in the mini greenhouse with the door permanently open. The plants get plenty of air but are still sheltered from wind and rain.

By the way Tim a similar thing happened with my bean plants earlier this week. I hadset the plants outside for the day, thinking the weather would be fine. Went off to work and we then had a heavy shower around midday. The plants looked a bit desheveled by evening. They have recovered OK now though.

Hope this helps

I doubt I'll ever get it right.

At this time of year, plants due to go out have been in a cold 'house, with everything wide open, for  a week or more.
One would have thought they were conditioned enough to face the world?

Same here really Tim.  I always find its a bit of guesswork as to when things are hardened off properly and ready to face the world 24/7.

However at least my plants get a hardening off. My mum has less patience with it than me and invariably just sticks things out when the weather gets warm enough. Then she wonders why the poor things struggle or get damaged!

A good human analogy would be if you were to suddenly be dragged out of a nice warm house and told to stand outside on a cold night wearing just the clothes you stood up in. You wouldnt like it. Hardening off plants is therefore like us putting n and extra layer of clothes to prepare us for the cold, the wind, the rain etc.