As with anything in nature, some of your seeds will do very well and some….not so much. I always believe that if at least one seedling sprouts per baby pot, I am doing okay. We still have time to correct those that didn’t come up, the mythical wiggle room I have mentioned previously. My personal goal now is to have everything in the ground outside by the middle of April. Even if a frost was to hit after, I can always throw some tarps over the young plantlings to keep the tips of their leaves safe from bitter weather. And frosts that happen that late in the season are usually very short lived, a couple of hours at most. Once the sun comes up, we can remove the tarps safely and let them bask in the warmth.

Now baby pots can be very fickle, some barely sprout any seedlings at all. But sometimes they sprout as if you dumped a whole pack of seeds in the same pot (see my example below):

This is not going to work. There is no way any of these seedlings will live up to their full potential being this crowded. Their roots will be struggling for space and water every second, let alone competing for sunlight. Their leaves will shade each other which is also a huge negative. We have reached the stage that I refer to as thinning the herd.

There was a time early in my gardening where I didn’t want to do this. I used to think it was a waste of my time and effort to plant seedlings just to go through them like the grim reaper and decide who lives and dies. At this stage of their nursery time, however, you will see the need to thin the herd daily, unless you have a plat-sized nursery dedicated to just one type of seed. I do not, so for the rest of the time they are in the nursery I will be evaluating and culling the weaker plants every day to allow the stronger baby plants uninterrupted growing space, nutrients and water. Some of the spaces won’t have clear cut winners, they will be equal in size and you won’t be able to tell who is stronger. That’s the reason I say we do this daily….I evaluate the nursery situation sometimes multiple times a day looking for strong contenders to earn a spot in my victory garden.

I like to take my time with this process, as it is determining exactly the plants that will be in my garden. I have put effort into these seedlings, I am trying to give the strongest fighters the greatest chance at survival. It boils down to me eliminating the competition for the plants and hoping that the ones I have left grow big and strong. I know what you will say….can’t we divide up the baby pot dirt and save the contenders? My simple answer is no, I cannot. Maybe I am extra clumsy and lack fine motor skills, however, I have never had success with trying this. My belief is that the roots and stems at this stage are too tiny and delicate to be ripping and shredding their tiny dirt balls apart. I also believe there are many videos and blogs about grafting and splitting plants up on the internet so if this is something you are interested in, now would definitely be the time to learn. But for me, I prefer to over plant and use the time I am saving to get my garden ready for planting.

So for the next few posts, I will include my pruning duties that usually start my day. My seedlings are on my kitchen table, so with a cup of coffee every morning, I sit in the kitchen and examine the tiny plantlings for the biggest and brightest. The time to plant is getting closer, we much make sure that everything we are working on now in the garden will directly impact its success!! 💜🌱💜