I’m new to gardening, and I have been a bit skeptical about the hardening off thing. It made me feel like the “experts” were making things more difficult than necessary. This is interesting. Maybe in the future, when I have more experience and knowledge, I’ll do experiments on one or two of my plants too. At this point, I’m trying to follow the “rules” pretty closely, but I know I’ll be doing some things differently next year already! The biggest take away I have from all of the advice and research that I’ve done this year is that there really REALLY is no one-size-fits-all, hard-and-fast rules when it comes to gardening. Every state, city, neighborhood, garden, gardener and plant is unique. You gotta do what works, where it works, when it works. So much trial and error!

Love garden experiments. I'm growing an indeterminate tomato in my living room 😂

Last year, 2023, I "woke up" my dahlias indoors but didn't know that I had to harden off - just planted them straight out in the garden when the soil was warm. Indoors, they were in front of windows to bring them along. They grew beautifully. Tall and majestic. This year, I used grow lights, learned about the acclimation process, and am frozen in fear that I won't harden off properly and all my dahlias will be weak, negating my coddling for all these weeks!

48 seconds into your video-i never harden off and get an excellent yield -they all begin growing when the temps are ready. plant anytime in may.

Just discovered your channel and enjoying your video's. I have been gardening since I was 5 and retired now so I do understand where you are coming from with your approach, the joy is in the observing and learning from nature. One tip I have recently learned in hardening off is the use of straw, not the processed chopped up one for mulch but the raw 1-2-foot lengths. I form a thick circle around the plant and then put an extremely thin layer on top. This I moisten lightly so the straw forms a slight bond to itself, and it doesn't seem to blow away for the most part. I am also noticing the deer and rabbits seem to pass over these areas, but it's spring and there's a lot around to feast on. I don't know how this would work in areas with a lot of slugs though.

Hardening off was something that never made much sense to me. Now I know why! :D Plants are used to being out in nature. While they may struggle a bit (usually due to "grower error"), most of the time they will thrive when in the right conditions. It seems like this is what happened to you as well. The first time you set the plants out, it was too cool for the "heat loving" plants. However, once they were put out when it was warmer, they did just fine. :) I usually try to do the "3 days of overcast weather" scenario, but now I'm not even sure I will mess with that much. ;) Thanks for sharing the results of your AWESOME experiment! :D P.S. I had some health issues this spring (still do technically) and my transplants didn't get as much "attention" as they normally do. Because of this, I didn't get many that survived. So, to still try to get something, I direct sowed about half of my pepper and tomato plants (among other things). I figure, if they don't grow, I'm no worse off. If they do grow, I'll be happy with any kind of successful harvest. :) We'll see how things go later in the season. ;)

If you have a week of overcast it’s the same as Harding off slowing over several sunny days

I'm in the area as you and my garden is struggling with this weather and I put some out too early and ended up pulling some out of the ground like cucumber and I'm starting again with so e plants I still have inside .o have them in a south faceing room in front of slides window doors and they do much better than out side .I have cucumber in side that is growing fruit and also my bell peppers are starting to grow fruit inside aswell And the one out side are not doing well .my Brussels sprouts are doing well though lol My experiment is to keep some inside for the whole year 😁

This works for me when they’re relatively small, they barely feel it during spring, in colder weather they appreciate a light cover, I actually started all my seedlings outside uncovered from mid may because I get direct sun all day 😅 the garden is frequently warmer then my ground floor flat

Yeah! Save the basil! I think lettuce could go out as little babies without much hardening off. I would have liked to have seen if a squash did well in that second experiment. Hmmm. Just planted out our baby squash yesterday!! Great advice about doing experiments!! Cheers Jason and Colleen

The spring this year definitely didn't help. I had tomatoes growing well, hardened them off, and so far they've stalled out. Soil was rich, sunlight was as best as possible given the almost incessant rain. The peppers are doing better, actually. My radishes just went straight to bolting.

6:10 put them under a screen or mesh that creates shade but wind can still get to them

My plants were started off indoors but spent their entire life so far either in the window inches from it (open when winds wernt bad) and the last few days in a greenhouse during the day with the ventilation flaps open (the plants are about 3 - 5 inches tall now) should they be okay? Is that enough?

This is my first ytv I watch from you and I’m surprised you don’t have more followers! Your Insta is awesome and I’m sure I will l o v e your canal 🤗🙏

I have a lot of time, so the hardening off process isn’t scheduled for me. I just watch them, and bring them in if they get floppy. Save the Basil! See if you can get that squash to reappear too

I use a wheelchair I try to protect them from cool night but i have a shady spot along side garage but they did dont get the one hour increment treatment...plus their is a lot of clouds in spring...traditional methods are obviously realistically overstated

rescue the basil!