Memorial Day weekend is the traditional time to "plant out" in Southcentral Alaska. I don't know if it is because the soil is usually warm enough by the time Memorial Day rolls around or if the chore requires the three days off from work.
Yes, yes, I know that many of you will be planting this weekend nonetheless -- and that is fine too, as long as you recognize the possibility that you might do better waiting one more week. Still, who can wait? A good compromise might be planting in containers this week and in the ground next week.
At the top of that list, then, is getting plants. Now -- not the day or the night before you want to plant -- is the time to buy. That is because you have to take every indoor grown plant through the process known as "hardening off," which is nothing more than acclimating everything grown indoors to the harsh realities of sunburn from the sudden exposure to the sun's ultra violet rays and windburn and drying from the wind.
I apologize to experienced gardeners for harping on this subject. You, however, know its crucial importance. There isn't a one of us who hasn't had at least a few plants turn silvery white and die when put directly outdoors into the sun.
Let's not make a big fuss over the particulars like we used to, with all the adding of one hour a day of sun and wind exposure and moving plants back indoors at night. Put all plants outdoors in the shade for a few days. Move them into dappled light the later part of the third day; under a birch tree is ideal. Do not bring them indoors.
While hardening off, your plants will need watering, so fill a container and keep it nearby.
This is the time to apply compost tea or liquid organic foods rather than when you transplant. These will be absorbed by the microbes in the root system. When you transplant, the plant and that needed ecosystem around the roots will be ready to go.
And the warning: If you have not hardened off plants grown indoors, be they annuals, vegetables, perennials, trees or shrubs, then don't plant them until you have. If you have to wait a week, so be it. If not, you risk the loss of your plants and you will impede the growth of those that do survive.
Next, clean up and set up your containers, be they baskets, deck boxes or just big pots. Make sure they have drainage. You might want to apply a bit of window screening over holes to keep soil in. A bit of sponge works. Make sure they are lifted off of decks, railings and the ground so they will actually drain and not rot wood. Small wooden blocks or lengths of doweling are in order.
Here is a new thought for most. You know that rototilling the big gardens destroys soil structure and reduces carbon production, so imagine what a good shifting with your hands and trowels does to the soil food web and the soil structure in your containers. Carefully, clean out the old plants, labels and stakes but don't dig up all the soil and destroy all those clumps as most of us do when dealing with last year's containers. Last year I simply cut whatever was on the surface and left the roots of the old plants undisturbed except where I planted the new ones. This not only preserved soil structure, the dead roots were a great source of carbon for the living plants. Remember, "team with the microbes," which need carbon.
Still, it is always instructive to take a look at the root system of a few of last season's dead plants in your containers. Did the roots spread out into the soil (good)? Or did they form a tight root ball that looked like the container they were transplanted from (bad)? Did they consume all the dirt in the container (not enough room), or were they dwarfed by all the soil (too much room)? This year alter your practices to make sure root systems are carefully opened up and laid out so things can develop a good root system.
Finally, containers can be covered with plastic to act as small greenhouses if things remain cool until the traditional planting out day.
Jeff Lowenfels is a member of the Garden Writers Hall of Fame. You can reach him at teamingwithmicrobes.com or by calling 274-5297 during "The Garden Party" radio show from 10 a.m. to noon Saturdays on KBYR AM-700.
Jeff Lowenfels
Gardening