Transplanting Seedlings
There will be the time where your little seedling will eventually outgrow its original pot and you will have to transplant it into its regular pot.
This can be a somewhat daunting task because seedlings tend to be pretty fragile and this is where I find that until enough experience is gained it freaks out new growers.
Luckily for us the process is not actually scary at all you just have to be gentle. To start you have to take the plant out of the rockwool out of your propagation tray and put it in your main growing medium.
There’s a few ways to do this and tend to be a mixture of what you are comfortable with and what medium you intend to grow in so i would like to take a moment to talk about all your options when it comes to transplanting you babies to their new home.
The first method I would like to talk about is the upside-down method which is the standard way professionals tend to transplant their seedlings.
As the name implies this method involves turning the pot upside down and letting gravity do most of the work.
There are some factors that help with this such as keeping the soil compact helps keep the plant safe during this method. The other main factor is understanding how to distribute weight which sounds much more complicated than it is.
Essentially just spread your fingers enough that they cover the entire area and allow the seedling to comfortably rest in your hand.
The next method would be the knife method. This method was definitely my preferred way to transplant in the beginning for a few reasons.
To start to do this method all you have to do is cut the base of the seedlings original pot and then place that into the new growing medium. At least for me personally this method took some fears away with how gentle I had to be but you do have to be careful not to cut the roots.
I wouldn’t recommend this method if you can see the roots peeking out the bottom.
This does however waste seedling pots and when the stems and roots grow nice and strong they tend to never want to leave the seedling pot.
The last method is a last resort in my opinion just because at this stage I don’t like stressing my plants. To start you will need to delay your watering schedule to dry out the soil.
This makes it easier to remove from the pot but comes with risks cuz you aren’t keeping your set water schedule.
If you find that even after the soil has dried that you still can easily get it out of its pot then take a nice and go around the outside of the loosen the dirt a bit and turn the plant upside down. With these methods you will become a transplant pro in no time at all.