Hardening Off

[jmsieglaff]

In the past I grew my tomato and pepper plants by our patio door and then into the cold frame. This year they have been growing under lights in the basement. The past few days I've put them by the patio door to begin to get used to sunlight. Today I moved them to the cold frame and am using burlap as a shade cloth for the next few days, after a few days the burlap will be gone, so I'm not worried about the plants growing too high into the burlap.

I've attached some pictures. The one picture is self-explanatory and the other is a picture of the plants in the cold frame under the burlap taken from outside the cold frame.

Does this method seem reasonable for getting them adjusted to sunlight? The tomato and peppers are fairly small--one to two sets of true leaves, which is maybe better than older larger plants grown under lights?

Thanks!
Justin

[jmsieglaff]

They've been out for morning and look good. A few days of diluted direct sunlight through the patio door I think has them in good shape for the filtered sun they're getting in the cold frame now. If they are getting sunburned how long does it take to see that on the leaves?

[RayR]

Seems a little extreme to me, but I don't see any harm in your caution.
My philosophy is get them used to sunlight as soon as possible and you don't have to worry about hardening off later. If they only have cotyledons or one set of true leaves, I love to get them into full sun in the spring, undercover if the outside temperature is too low but sunny or out in the open on a nice warm day. Gardeners further south have more to be concerned about with hardening off since the sun's intensity is greater in the spring than it is up north.
My plants have spend about a week total so far exposed to outdoor conditions and I will continue to keep them outside whenever the temps and the weather permits. I've never sun burned a plant doing this so I will keep on doing it.

[jmsieglaff]

Thanks for the input. The next couple days look to be cloudy, so they'll stay in the cold frame and likely lose the burlap.

[PA_Julia]

I began hardening my plants off yesterday. I too have had them under lights in our basement.
I began yesterday of setting them on the patio table in light shade for one hour, today I increased that to two hours.

Tomorrow I will increase the time to two hours and 45 minutes of the same shading then 15 minutes of direct sun before bringing them in.
I'll increase both shade and direct sun until they are outside for at least eight hours in direct sunlight.