If you grow tomatoes up North, and you start them from seed inside to get a jump on things, you have to harden your plants off before moving them outside permanently. This involves moving them outside for some period of time, 1hr, 3hrs, usually gradually increasing the time so the plants have time to adjust to the harsh outdoor invironment after being coddled under nice warm UV lights for the first part of their life.
Do you folks that are growing up North harden your cannabis plants off before planting out?
If you do, what process do you use?
Between 20-30 tomato plants, plus the various strains that’ll be spending the rest of their lives outside, let’s just say I have a LOT of plants to move, especially for an old man like me And I don’t have a garage that I can easily wheel them in/out of.
What do you folks do?..or do you even bother with cannabis?
I’m reposting this entry from another forum where someone asked a similar question:
"Wait a minute. Some of you guys spend an entire month getting your plants used to being outdoors before you put them in full sun? You’ve got to be kidding! Do you have any idea how much growth you probably cost them? What’s the point of starting them early indoors if you’re not even going to give them full sun for the first month they’re outside? Might as well just wait until the weather’s warm enough and plant 'em outside from the get-go.
I’m sorry, but there’s just no way at all that it’s necessary to baby marijuana plants to that degree. It’s a weed, guys, not an orchid. A couple of days… maybe, if it makes you feel better. But I’ve never even done that much, and I’ve never lost a single plant to sunshock. I stick 'em straight outside as soon as they’re ready, and they take it from there. You guys are wa-a-a-ay overthinking this."
We use to wait for a couple consecutive cloudy days, maybe with a light rain to plant outside but if none presented themselves within the sowing time, it was straight to full sun. The plants where usally a decent size, with a healthy root ball and they mostly all survived in a guerilla environment.
I plant them outside directly, or … when it’s too cold… start them inside next to a window so they get blasted with sun for at least a short while each day. Seeds are made to grow in nature, so they don’t need coddling, but if they are started indoors under lower levels of artificial light they may need a slight amount of tempering to harden them from the suns intense radiation… If I were worried about it, I would just put the plants outside and put one of those really thin opaque plastic shopping bags over the plants/seedlings for a day or three to lower the light intensity
When it’s still “cool” up here in Northern Maine, I move my 3 - 5 Gal Buckets into the Garage. On Sunny days, I open 1 Overhead Door, let them get the Afternoon Sun, but still protected from the cool winds this time of year. Every two weeks, I move them closer to the open doorway. Haven’t lost one yet to “Wind Burn”. We can’t go into the ground until Frost-free Date. SS/BW…mister
I blast them with the older plants in my veg tent. They’re usually good to go straight outside with no acclimation period. If you put your plants under low ppfd/dli conditions indoors then yeah you’d have to acclimate them otherwise they’re fine.
I’ve hurt plants by just sticking them out there without watching them. It’s not just bright sunlight, but also humidity, wind, etc.
To harden them off, I stick them in the sunlight starting with about three hours and watch them carefully. Usually in two days they’re ready to stay in it 24/7.
We put them on the shaded side of our deck once we know all chances of frost are past…they usually do fine… except when we get sudden spikes/drops in temps…
Meh, throw em to the wolves!
My special plants go straight to the sun. If I have the space, they might live in the vented hoop house for a small period of time.
All my veggie starts on the other hand…
They get special treatment. Usually uppotted to pints(ish) before taken outside. Sometimes not.
Into the vented hoop house for a week or two. Sometimes I’ll throw a white tarp over the thing to decrease rays. Yes, I’m weird.
On another note; I’m getting excited! How bout you?
I got quite a few veggie seedlings started and a shit ton more to get in their trays. Got some new stuff this year I’m gonna try too.
Whatchu got?
I try to get my plants that are going to be finishing outdoors direct sun exsposure as soon as the first set of leaves start popping out from the cotelydon. On sunny days, I put them on the East side porch, so they get direct morning sun until about 11am. As they grow a little more, I increase the direct sunlight exposure as much as possible. By the time they outgrow their starter cups and are in the ground, they can handle full day sunlight.
For plants that didn’t get that exposure early on, the transition time is about a week, starting with direct morning sun until they show stress (about 1 to 2 hours). Then increasing that amount each day for 1 week. By the end of the week, they are ready. I usually plant them in the ground a few nodes above the original soil level too, trimming off lower growth and leaving just a few nodes exposed above the soil.
I think nows a good time to remind everyone to consider ipm/quaranteen type stuff.
When veggie starts are in the basement or in and out, all plants get ipm (aphids in particular around here seem to appear earliest) more showers get taken, etc which is no big deal as long as you’re like me and never in a real big hurry haha
I take mine in and out as soon as we get good weather. When the days are long enough i plant them.
It only took a few trips outdoors with my larger plants before i could just leave them for the day in full sun.
My biggest issues this year is my 3 gallon pots getting blown over.
For tomatoes, sometimes I plant them laying down sideways, strip all the lower growth off (could be 18 inches), and only leave like 6 inches exposed above the soil.
For weed, it just depends on how I feel at the moment I plant in the ground. Depends on how strong the main stem looks, internodal spacing, etc. If they are little with only a couple of nodes, I’ll just put the lowest node right at the soil surface. If they are 18 inches with more nodes, I’ll put like 4 to 8 inches below the soil surface.
And I don’t have a garage that I can easily wheel them in/out of.
