One of the best ways to get an early start on your garden is to begin your seedlings inside. Starting them inside allows you to protect them from the generally unpredictable spring weather, and can help prevent damage due to cold temperatures. By using vegetable plug plants to germinate and grow your seeds inside, you can easily enjoy a productive and fulfilling garden earlier in the season, and have a much better success ratio when growing your own plants.
Vegetables grown via plug plants are easily transplanted into the garden once they are sufficiently large enough. The easiest way to grow these plants in through the use of a specially designed kit, although some homemade methods may also be effective.
The vegetable plug plant kit is typically a tray full of empty tubes in which you can place your planting soil and seed for the plant. Side by side, the tray can hold many different plugs, and allows for you to get a great start on your outdoor garden. Once the seed has sprouted and the root system grown throughout the plug, the roots will hold the soil together allowing you to pull the plug plants out of the tray. These are then readily available to plant into your outdoor garden.
Your plang plug will do best once they have sprouted in a room that receives plenty of sunlight. The young plants need sunlight as much as full grown plants. Either place the trays in an area that gets a lot of sunlight in the day, or if you are fortunate to have a conservatory on your home, placement in this type of sun room is an excellent choice.
When planting from transplants, it is helpful to gradually harden the plants to their new environment. Take the plant outdoors for a couple of hours a day before you plant the plug into your garden. Increasing the new plants exposure to the elements will allow it to adjust better to its new home.
This can be an excellent way to jump start your garden and ensure that you have a successful planting and harvest. One method home gardeners use to ensure the success of their garden is to transplant more than they anticipate needing. Some of the seeds will do better than others, allowing you to plant seeds that look healthy and are likely to survive the transplant.
There are a number of different varieties of vegetables that do well this way, though not all are as successful as others. Man of the deep rooted or underground vegetables have a hard time being transplanted. You will want to consult with your local nursery or research sites online like Square Foot Gardening, for more information on plants that work well as plug plants.