Time to harden off your seedlings, says Gayton-based gardener Jamie Marsh

In his weekly Jamie’s Little Allotment column, gardener Jamie Marsh talks about hardening off.

As gardeners and Brits, one of our favourite conversations is about the weather, what it’s been like, how wrong the weatherman has been and what it’s going to be like next week.

This last week’s weather has been a big talking point, three days of 20 degrees and bright sunshine then the high winds arrive, blowing everything in their path all over the allotment and then the last two days rain, hail and even snow. But the main thing that us gardeners are looking for is frost, and we haven’t seen hide nor hair of one for several weeks. But that doesn’t mean we’ve seen the last of the dreaded Jack Frost this year.

What we can do though is wait for our last frost date in our area to pass, then we can be fairly confident we will be frost-free from thereon in.

Last frost dates are based on recorded historically averaged temperatures. There are many sites on the internet to view your last frost date, mine here in Gayton is April 30 so not long now.

But what you can do now is start to harden off all your seedlings which you have grown from seed on the windowsill or in the greenhouse or in my case in the Hot Hut.

Hardening off is just a term used for acclimatising plants which have been grown in a lovely warm environment and need to be planted outside soon,

In the morning when the sun starts to raise the temperature bring your young plants outside, and position them where they aren’t going to get battered by the wind. Also, if possible, put them in a shady position so if the sunshine gets strong it won’t scorch the delicate leaves.

If you haven’t got a shady position maybe cover them with a layer or two of fleece, leave them there all day then return them back to the safety of the greenhouse. Then replant the next day, do this for several days then start removing the fleece.

Now completely unprotected, be wary of the allotment holder’s nemesis, the pigeon. As soon as he sees those beautiful tender young plants he won’t be able to resist so maybe place some netting over the baby plants to deter him.

Now the plants are fleece-free in the daytime you can start leaving them out during the night, but you should add the fleece back over the youngsters again for the hours of dankness, just in case we get a late spring frost, which is quite likely with the weather patterns we’ve been having lately.

Hardening off might seem a bit of a long-winded process, but it’s definitely worth doing, to give the young plants you’ve cared for and nurtured the best start outside possible.

I just want to add that hardening off does not make frost-sensitive plants hardy, so don’t think by doing this you can start to plant your tomatoes out and they will be okay. If there’s a frost, they definitely won’t be.

It’s a good time to be hardening off now if like me you want to plant out early May.

If you’re desperate for space in the greenhouse, you can plant some of the frost-hardy plants out into the beds earlier. I have done this but I’ve used a cloche over the young plants just to give them a little bit of extra protection from any icy frosts or that wretched pigeon.

A cloche is a term for a low transparent structure which can be placed over a single plant which acts like a greenhouse. If you have a row of plants you would like to protect, a cloche tunnel will be perfect. They are made from flexible clear plastic shaped to form a tunnel over the row of delicate plants. I usually use plastic tonic or pop bottles with the bottom cut off.

Next week I will be topping my beds with compost and will be starting the planting out process .

As always send any questions to jamieslittleallotment@gmail.com