Give Transplants a Quiet Week Before You Judge Them
The first week after transplanting is easy to misread. A plant may lean, pause, soften in the afternoon, or look smaller than the seedling next to it. Those signs matter, but they do not always mean the planting failed. Often, the crop is simply shifting from tray life to bed life. A useful transplant check is not a daily verdict. It is a slow comparison of root contact, leaf recovery, bed moisture, and new growth. If those pieces are watched in order, the grower can avoid two common mistakes: pushing the plant too hard too soon, or replacing a seedling that only needed time to settle. Newly moved seedlings need a few quiet checks before their real condition is clear. Start with contact, not height Height is a poor first-week measure. A tall seedling can still have weak contact with the bed, while a shorter one may already be holding steady. The first question is whether the root ball is sitting firmly in moist soil without an air pocket around it. This is especially important for cucu...