Transplanting Seedlings

Now that our beds are made, it is time to plant our seedlings from the greenhouse.

These seedlings have been hardened off meaning that they were moved from a warmer greenhouse to a cooler greenhouse to prevent shock when transplanting.

First, we plant our "cold crops" like cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, kale, and collards.

We have an implement called a transplanter and it consists of 2 water tanks, a planting wheel, two seats, and trays for the seedlings.

To begin the tractor runs at a low range. The planting wheel punctures the plastic and places a small amount of water in the opening, just enough to moisten the soil and hold the seedling.  The wheel also keeps the seedlings evenly spaced in the row. There are two wheels that make two rows per bed.

 

Next the planters ready the seedlings for transplanting. The trays in front of them hold several trays at a time. They pull the trays onto their lap and push each seedling out from the bottom.

As the planting wheel goes over the plastic and puntures holes, the planters then place each seedling into each hole. They must go at a relatively fast pace to keep up with the speed of the tractor.

At the end of each row, the tractor driver lifts the planters up.....

And begins again on the next row.

In just a few short weeks, the transplants have already grown quite a bit.

 



Other crops are transplanted by hand, like onions.

 We plant onions on reflective plastic to repel buts called thrips.

As the weather warms up we are starting to plant more and more. Pretty soon we will have all of our crops in for the year. This spring has been a cold one and the lower temperatures have prevented us from planting the crops that need warmer weather.