Gertrude's Flower Garden Weekly Diary

12/22/00 - The impatiens seedlings in the first container planted began to grow their second leaves in the last few days. This is the signal that they are ready to transplant. I have three sizes of flats and for the impatiens use the largest, which has sixteen boxes with four compartments each. The flats are (or should be) watertight and the boxes with bottom openings, so that plants can be watered by pouring water into the flat. In a large plastic bucket, which I place under a spigot in one of the old-fashioned washtubs that I have in my cellar, I put a mixture of half fine peatmoss and half vermiculite. I run medium hot water into the bucket and mix the peatmoss and vermiculite by hand, being careful that it is not too runny. Then I pack this growing-mixture into the plastic boxes until the flat is filled. Now we are ready to begin transplanting.
         I move the mixture-filled flat onto my work table, placing the container of impatiens seedlings beside it. Try, if you can remember, to dry out the container of seedlings just before you are ready to transplant them--this will make it easier to separate the roots of the seedlings which, because they are thickly planted, tend to stick together. I found, years ago, that I could plant four impatiens seedlings in each of this size container's openings--it crowds things a bit, but the alternative is fewer plants overall, since there is just so much room under the lights that I have. With a spoon, I dig out a clump of the tiny impatiens, and, with an unsharpened pencil, make holes in the corners of each box opening--that is 16 to a container or 128 to a flat. With the help of the pencil, I push the seedling as deep as possible into the hole and press the planting misture around it. Deep planting is important because plants will tend to get leggy reaching for light, and this helps to keep them short and sturdy.
         Now the flat is ready to put under one of the fluorescent lights. Having wet the planting mixture not only has made it easier to work with, but will obviate watering for some time. I have successfully used this method of transplanting for many years. I hope that some of these ideas are useful and prove helpful in your own transplanting procedure. I have a container each of white and yellow Star zinnias and another container of inpatiens that won't be ready to transplant until after Christmas; meanwhile, I will hold off on further seed planting until after I come back from a holiday visit to one of my daughters.
         Here is another autumn picture of one of my wonderful Plains asters. These flowers by my front steps were grown from the seeds of the mother plant that found her own way into my garden. This flower is loveliest when it has space to spread itself gracefully. It is a perennial and quite hardy in our climate--a neighbor found some in blue at a local flower mart.

ntgates@worldnet.att.net