Bringing your indoor leafbabies outside

HARDENING OFF PLANTS outside IS AN IMPORTANT STEP

If you started off your leafbaby seeds indoors intending to plant them outside, getting them accustomed to harsher conditions than your dining room is crucial. You’d think that they’d just do way better being in the ground than inside, but like animals, plants adapt to their conditions.

WE’RE NOT TELLING YOU TO TAKE YOUR PLANTS FOR A WALK

They do however need an incremental step before you put them outside in the ground or their raised beds or planters or whatever. Too long in the sun and they will get sunburned leaves. Too much water and they could dampen off. It’s a tough world out there for your leafbabies, so take care of them

BUT YOU ALREADY KNEW THAT

You know every plant has slightly different needs and they’re all little attention mongers. But you love it right? Why else would you spend your weekends outside in the weeds.  Some plants need it to be consistently above 50 degrees Fahrenheit, others want it to be a bit cooler (as long as its above freezing), even with in the same family of plants. It’s always important to do your research first.  If you’re not sure, check with a gardener pal, or here on leafbabies.com in the forum, for the best way to harden off your special leafy friends so that they grow up big and strong.

OTHERWISE THERE’S THE GARDEN CENTER

Our local nursery just loves us. We do our best to stay away (so we don’t go broke). But they just seem to know what to put out front so that we just can’t help but pull in to take a peek…. and ultimately bring home because we have no self control whatsoever. If you don’t want to go through the hassle of starting and hardening off your own plants, your local nursery is a fine option (and by mid June nobody’s gonna know the difference anyway).  It will be a little more expensive. We don’t judge though. It is perfectly acceptable to adopt a leafbaby. Or many leafbabies.  Have a look at what’s growing in our gardens

For a fun game , see if you can name all these leafbabies without cheating with Google or wikipedia and tweet us your answer @leafbabies.  If you’re right you’ll win… our respect and admiration… we don’t give stuff away, this is just a blog.  But we’ll be friends… And friends, fertilizer and a little dirt under your fingernails is what makes us all happy, right?