You’ve nurtured those vegetable plants from seed and taken the effort to carefully harden off your transplants. Now make sure that you employ the best transplanting techniques to get your vegetable seedlings into the garden with as little disruption in their growth as possible.

The garden is shaping up nicely as I continue to direct seed and transplant summer vegetables into the raised beds. The leafy spring greens that were harvested beginning in March are finished producing and have been removed from the garden to make room for summer crops. One reddish tinged wild kale plant was left behind in the garden to produce seed.

The Frost Warnings that were widely scattered across Pennsylvania last night gave me reason for major concern. I had just recently transplanted all of my frost tender heirloom tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants out into the garden’s unprotected raised beds.

You’ve put the time and effort into growing your own healthy vegetable transplants indoors under lights and now it’s time to transplant them into the garden. But before you head for the garden be sure to harden off those tender seedlings or you’ll be making a mistake that could destroy all your careful efforts.

Yesterday I set my tomato transplants out into the garden and thought I’d share the techniques that I use to grow healthy tomato plants indoors. The tomato seeds were planted about six weeks ago and resulted in a dozen healthy transplants for the garden.

For those of you in the Central Pennsylvania area, here’s a reminder of the upcoming Landis Valley Museum’s 2006 Herb & Garden Faire which will take place this weekend. This popular annual Herb & Garden Faire will be held on Friday and Saturday, May 12th and 13th from 9am to 5pm on both days.

If you’re growing tomato plants indoors under lights and want to keep them happy and healthy until they are ready to be transplanted into the garden, then now’s the time to start tickling those tomato seedlings.

Instead of forming loose leaves along its stem the cabbage leaves wrap around and fold over each other to form a dense head of layered leaves. Cabbages are heavy feeders and appreciate a fertile soil enriched with good compost or a balanced organic fertilizer.