Hardening off.

Its that time of the week to look at my understanding of a horticultural word or term. This week we are looking at hardening off.

Hardening off.

Hardening off is a term given to getting young plants used to their final planting positions. A plant that is been grown indoors in warm sheltered conditions, will suffer and possibly even die' if we put straight outdoors in cold windy conditions without the plant being allowed to get used to the outdoor conditions.

To do this I like to move plants from potting shed to greenhouse to cold frame to outdoor shelf spread over several weeks in order to acclimatise itself to the conditions. I also like to brush the stems daily in order to strengthen the stems.

Other gardeners will place plants outside in the morning. Thenreturn them indoors in the evening slowly getting a little later each day in order to harden them off.

Ultimately we don't want to start hardening off plants when it's too cold for the plant anyway.

How do you harden off your plants? Let me know in the comments.