Transplanting tiny seedlings

The one-inch cells of Moon Carrot seedlings are ready to move into larger quarters.

 First step, for me, is filling pots with potting soil and getting it watered so the roots go into moistened soil.
 Then, I use 2 plastic knives to lift the entire cell of seedlings out the their first home.




 Next, I carefully tease out the tiny, fragile plants, handling them by the plant stem.




These had long, tangled roots that had to be gently separated by removing the original soil.




 A hole is made in the new soil, the seedling is held by a leaf and placed into the prepared pot.




The roots on some of the seedlings require a taller pot in order to not be wadded up at planting time.




Another method you can use, is simply to cut the heads off all but one seedling in each cell and transplant the entire cell into a new pot.




I put a few drops of fish emulsion or Daniels plant food into each gallon of room temperature water.




Each transplant is watered in and then drained.


 
 
 
Then, the pots of damp babies are put out of direct sunlight for several days to let them settle in.
After that week, they are put under lights or under the skylight to continue to grow.


Questions? Comments?

Comments

Jeana said…
Thanks for the info. I usually do your second method of snipping the heads of but I going to give separating them a try.
Martha said…
Hi Jeana -
It's a time consuming process and I always end up trying to salvage even the tiny ones.
If you have the heart, go ahead and feed those tiny seedlings to the worm bin. They rarely catch up to their larger siblings.
Martha

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