Hardening the Squash and Corn

Corn and Squash Feb. 8

Before you take a plant and plant it outside you're supposed to harden it. The process of hardening is done by gradually increasing the hours the plant is outside in the sunlight after being indoors or a in a greenhouse. Each day you gradually increase the hours it has been outside in the sun.

Squash and Corn

I had transplanted my squash and corn into containers. These seedling are quite the growers and no longer fitted in their original tiny seedling containers. A few containers I was able to put on my windowsill but some didn't make it because of the container size. Luckily I did purchase a spot grow light bulb which I have been using for my various seedlings and for the squash. But with the warmer days I started putting them out on my back porch around lunch time and leaving them outside until night time with the weather gets chilly. As they days went by and the weather warmed up more they even spent a few nights outside. They've even tolerated a few of the lighter winds we have in El Paso.

The first picture is when the squash was still hanging out indoors before hardening.  The other pictures are the squash and corn hardened sitting outside today on my back porch.

Squash

One thing that I did notice with the squash was that the first few hours on the first hardening days the first original squash leaves the sprouted would start to wilt. To combat the squash wilting I made sure that the soil was very moist and not dry. After a few hours it would come back up to its normal pose. I think this is just the process of hardening. As days went by they did this a bit less and needed even less watering. I have nice big round new leaves coming out of each squash plant and soon they will have exceeded the capacity of the container they are currently in. In contrast, the corn took the sun like a champ.

I haven't yet decided when they will go permanently into the ground outside but if the weather continues to be as beautiful as it has been they are ready. I just don't want to put them out in the garden and have a frost come in and ruin all my work. For next year, squash and corn will be planted later. They are fast growers so I probably won't start them until probably mid March. This has been a beginners learn from your mistakes situation.

One thing I'm very happy about is that so long as the temperature does not drop below 40 degrees Fahrenheit I don't have to bring these in at night.  This is what I heard from a radio show Good to Grow on NPR Feb 12th.  I'm going by this because the last Squash container pictured is very heavy and if I can avoid it, I don't want to pick it up anymore.