The transplant shocker

My Mom's

My garden

This year my mother and I began our gardening indoors and of course, we became slightly competitive..

A month or two went by and most our plants were the same, but then the dreaded hardening and transplanting time came. Mom had began hardening about two weeks early when it wasn't entirely summer and left them outside through the night (covered of course.. only around 40 degrees F) Eventually she had her garden set up and chose to plant. Having a smaller crop I was able to move mine outdoors quite easily and being a procrastinator i waited until my plants were bigger and it was warmer outside until I hardened mine off and began planting. In theory hers would have been larger still, and better off because there wasn't much shock and the roots systems weren't as developed when transplanted and mine worse off. But lo and behold, both of our gardens are flourishing. There seems to be a critical planting time period when a plant is still small enough to fit into a pot but big enough to be transplanted without dying from shock.

Just another trial with having a very short summer..