 Hi, my name is Ashley Eckard. I am the NDSU Extension Agent for Golden Valley and part of Billings Counties in Western North Dakota. My home office is based out of beach. And today I'd like to talk to you a little bit about preparing plants to be transplanted into your garden. As we're getting into the nice spring weather, it's a beautiful April day today and probably has a lot of people thinking about starting their gardens, whether you're thinking about visiting your local nursery or whether you have some seedlings started at home that you planted some seeds earlier this spring. Those plants need some care before they go directly into the garden. So let's talk about how it is that we can make those plants be as successful once they get into the garden as we can. We know to go through a process called hardening off of the plants. And so what that does is that helps to protect the plants from some of the things that damage them when we move them outside in the spring. Things like cold temperatures. Today, as of today, we could still have almost a month where a frost would be possible. Wind. In North Dakota, the wind always blows and that wind can rip and damage and bend those leaves, as well as pushing up dirt particles that will almost like sandblast the plants. And we don't want those things to happen. Also, lower amounts of water. When we start these seedlings, whether it be in a greenhouse setting or whether it's in your home, you give them an ideal condition to grow. We give them the right amount of light. We give them lots of water. And once they get transplanted into the garden, they're more susceptible to nature and to all of those things that, whether or not it rains, how often we're able to be there to water them, all of those things. And then also strong sunlight, because even in a greenhouse situation, or if you're growing under grow lights, that light is not as strong as what you're going to get in direct unfiltered sunlight in the garden setting. So what we're going to do is we're going to take these plants through a process called hardening off. And what that does is that causes the cell walls to thicken and add more lignin. It also helps create the plants to create thicker cell walls and a wax covering over the leaves that will help protect it from the sunlight. Those natural plant waxes will get thicker to protect them from those things. It also will reduce some of the succulent foliage and help harden that foliage and create more carbohydrate in there. So there's less water in those leaves that will freeze if we do get some colder temperatures. And it'll help to reduce the loss of water too through transpiration as all those processes happen. And lastly it helps to invigorate some root growth. So those plants really good at good start as you get them out into your soil. So how do we do that? You want to harden these plants over about seven to ten days. And you want to take out your plants and you want to set them out the first day into a shaded spot with has quite a bit of wind protection. And you want to let those plants spend two or three hours out there. And every day you want to just spend let them spend a little bit more time with a little bit more sunlight and a little less wind protection. And just gradually get them used to being out in our North Dakota conditions. Over the seven to ten days you want to work them up to where you have them outside for probably 10 to 12 hours a day. And the last couple of days you maybe even want to leave them out 24 hours a day and watch how they handle the situations that we have in the weather conditions before you transplant them. If you have some seedlings in the house and you're not quite ready to start taking them out there's some things that you can do even in the house. Gently brushing over the plants a couple times a day. Heading the plants per se would help to strengthen the stems and strengthen the leaves. Also in some cases just a light low powered fan blowing gently on them will create some simulated wind to help strengthen those stems even as you're growing them in a greenhouse or in a situation with a grow light in a hole. So once you've completed your seven to ten days where you've hardened off these plants and have them acclimated to the outside air and culture then these plants can be taken and transplanted into your garden. However you do want to be somewhat cautious with the weather forecast. Here our last frost date in this part of North Dakota and Southwest corner we're looking at somewhere around May 20th. And so before that time if you know that you have some cold hardy plants that can maybe take some light temperatures and some be able to withstand those you can go ahead and transplant those once they're hardened off. If you have some plants that need some warmer temperature you may want to hold off just a little bit or if an unexpected frost does come up be prepared to provide those plants with some protection. If you guys have any questions on how to do these processes or how to harden off plants please contact your local NDSU Extension office.