Hardening off under plastic

AJ Drew · Mar 22, 2016

Former hardening off system involved car port, porch,and other places with little to no direct sun light. Wondering if plants need that before going in a poly tunnel / under plastic? Car port does not provide any heat retention at night, so have to wait till after last frost to move things there. If I can move to poly tunnel, they can go out a lot earlier.

Have hardened off in mini green houses before, but they are all shaded. So have not a clue. New to high tunnels. Seems like nurseries get away with it.

pepper_rancher · Mar 22, 2016

My 2 cents: I dont think nurseries start their seeds indoors under artificial lights, so the hardening process isnt really an issue (they are born straight into the harsh reality of nature). I could be wrong, this is just an assumption.
As far as the plastic, it may not be enough depending on the direct amount of sun... you could add a shade cloth over top of the hoops if you want to increase the filtering during hardening. But if it is still winter/early spring sunlight, and I did not have an option to add additional shading I would feel OK with just the plastic and just keep an eye on the plants.

AJ Drew · Mar 22, 2016

pepper_rancer, observation about mother nature made me laugh. Last bit on low sunlight is excellent, had not thought on that. Maybe bad idea if the summer sun is up, but this early maybe not a horrible thing to try. Think will be risking maybe a dozen plants before I move a bunch.

hogleg · Mar 22, 2016

ajdrew said:
pepper_rancer, observation about mother nature made me laugh. Last bit on low sunlight is excellent, had not thought on that. Maybe bad idea if the summer sun is up, but this early maybe not a horrible thing to try. Think will be risking maybe a dozen plants before I move a bunch.

Thats what I was gonna mention. Run a few test plants if they're still good in three days put the rest in.

juanitos · Mar 22, 2016

should be fine. plastic only lets through 70% or so of light.

ronaldo_fanbelt · Mar 22, 2016

Last year I put a white bed sheet over the plants. It seemed to work.

robbyjoe01 · Mar 22, 2016

Wind seems to be the killer here instead of direct sunlight for the hardening off process. Got good cloud filtered sunlight but 35mph wind with gust exceedingly bad. Hail and flooding next month

AJ Drew · Mar 22, 2016

Robbyjoe, ye wind is a killer here too. For what ever reason, not much on the car port but have lost plenty putting them in too early. You live and learn,sometimes learning hurts.

pepper_rancher · Mar 22, 2016

ajdrew said:
pepper_rancer, observation about mother nature made me laugh. Last bit on low sunlight is excellent, had not thought on that. Maybe bad idea if the summer sun is up, but this early maybe not a horrible thing to try. Think will be risking maybe a dozen plants before I move a bunch.

Good idea playing it safe with a few plants first... dont let the others get too far behind on hardening though or it may backfire!