Made a mistake.

I think the weather two Sundays ago threw me. It was a lovely 12 – 14 degrees in my back garden. The sun was out and I made the bold and consequently stupid decision to put my bigger seedlings into the outdoor plastic grow home. The grow home is in a sheltered part of a south facing garden and I thought they would be ok. They = courgette, broccoli and butternut squash seedling/ small plants. All had been potted on and all were between 4 and 10 inches high.


They had taken over my dining room so I put them out. Well they now look very sorry. Limp is probably the best word to describe them.


Do I try and resurrect them with some plant feed?

Do I bring them back in, although temperatures are now on the up?

Do I scrap them and start again?


Really annoyed with myself as I started early and bought an electric propagator.


POOP!!!!!

 

Courgettes and Squashes are warm weather plants and need just that, I would suggest that they need a minimum temperature of 10 degrees C.

What I think has happened here though is that your seedlings where not hardened off, that is getting them used to being outdoors. Start by putting them outside on bright sunny days under protection and bringing them back indoors at night, extend the time outdoors after a few days.

After a few days and as the nights get warmer you can chance overnight outside, go out before bed to check on them.

You will need to do the same thing when moving these plants from their plastic growhouse to their final planting position too.

Your plants just got stressed from the shock of outside and inside temps, fetch them back in for a day or two to recover, then start hardening off.

Steve...