Update

The hardening off process is coming along well with most of the plants looking greener, larger and very healthy. They spent the entire day in the garage with the garage door open.  Tomorrow they will be in sunlight for the first time.

Postscript #1 -There was germination by Canary Bell and Cayenne peppers and a Principe Borghese tomato.

Beware: Garage in Use

Moving the seedlings from the inside of the house to the farmer's porch and front steps was quickly becoming a nuisance. Instead, I have enlisted the use of the garage. The garage has far more floor space to handle the large number of trays. I have been opening up the garage door during the day and then closing it at night; I will not move these seedlings back into the house unless a freezing nighttime temperature is forecasted. On Thursday I will move them out onto the driveway to bask in filtered sunlight for an hour or two and gradually increasing the exposure to five or six hours by the weekend.  From there, they will go into the hoop house or raised beds, if ready.

Following are the pepper seeds that have germinated overnight:

Purple Bell
California Wonder Green
Jimmy Nardello

Adjusting to Outdoor Life

Today I began introducing some seedlings to the outdoors.  The forecast looks very spring-like for the week ahead. The temperature mid-morning was fifty-five degrees and it was expected to rise to seventy degrees by early afternoon.  So there was no reason to further delay the hardening-off process.

I decided to move the cool weather vegetable crops, the herbs, perennials and hardy annuals to the farmer's porch for four hours. Even though they were in a shady, protected area, they nonetheless looked limp and moderately unhappy with their change of environment.  I will repeat today's schedule for the next few days, and increase the length of time to six hours by Wednesday. Then I will move them into sunshine for a few hours each on Thursday and Friday and gradually increase their length of exposure over the next weekend. By the end of next week, the plants will be well on their way to living in the hoophouse or outdoor beds. The hardening-off process takes me anywhere from eight to ten days in total.

Postscript #1 - The seeds in the red cherry pepper containers have germinated.