Do Not Buy These Transplants

You buy transplants, stick them in the soil, and voila - instant garden! But, over the next few weeks, some of them start looking really sad. For those plants, you should have bought seeds instead.

Transplants are great. They get to germinate and grow indoors, under protected and controlled conditions, and until things are just right outside - and then they are plugged into the ground for an instant garden. It’s a great pre-season activity for gardeners with the space and wherewithal to do it themselves, and an unbelievably convenient way for gardeners to simply buy an instant garden so long as they do not mind shelling out a few bucks at a garden center.

Transplants are a great way to get an early start - but for some things, it’s either a waste of time or it makes no difference. [source]

With all that having been said, I was at a garden center the other day, and that visit was the inspiration for this article, because some of the transplants that they had for sale were things that I would never buy or start as transplants. To put it simply - for some vegetables, it just does not make sense to do anything other than start them as seeds in the ground, even in places with relatively short-growing seasons - so here’s a list of vegetables that I think should be direct-seeded, and why I think that’s the case.

Cucurbits (melons, cucumbers, squash, pumpkins)

I don’t know why, but these plants hate being transplanted. Perhaps it’s the shift in soil temperature, or the shift in soil type, or simply the jostling and disturbing of the roots - but many people come to me each year and ask why their cucumbers have just withered into oblivion a few weeks after planting. Cucurbits are warm weather plants. Even when all risk of frost is gone (when transplants are usually planted out), the soil can still be quite still cool below the surface.