The boys loved planting our seeds and watering them daily. After 6-8 weeks, we repotted our seedlings. Planting seedlings out in the garden at the proper time is crucial to their development later on. If you put them out before they are ready, they may have a hard time surviving the elements. If you wait too long, your seedling may become pot bound in its original container.

There is no hard and fast rule to how tall a plant should be before you put it out in the garden, due to the fact that different plants grow to different sizes. Also, the amount of light a seedling gets can influence how quickly a plant grows in height when you are raising plants from seeds. If there is not enough light, a plant can grow very tall very quickly, but this plant may or not be ready for planting out. The best way to judge if a plant is large enough to plant out in the garden is to look at the number of true leaves.

The general rule of thumb is that when a seedling has three to four true leaves, it’s large enough to plant out in the garden, after it has been hardened off. Hardening off is just gradually introducing your baby plants to the great outdoors. Once your seedlings are big enough and the temperatures are appropriate for planting outside, put your seedlings outside in a sheltered, preferably shaded, area. Leave them there for a few hours and then bring them back indoors. Repeat this process over the next few days, leaving the seedlings for a little longer each day. Once they are outside for the entire day, move them to a sunny area and repeat the process. Read more about hardening off at Gardening Know How: How To Harden Off Your Seedlings

Resources

Method

First, we weeded out some pots from last year. We mixed the soil with some compost.

Finny spotted the roots at the bottom. They were surprised to see that the roots were as long at the bottom, as the plant was tall at the top.

When Finn took his radish out of it’s pot, he exclaimed, “It’s just like the model, the model was right!” Ioan fetched the seedling from our ‘Life cycle of a bean plant‘ to compare.

They saw the importance of repotting the seedlings, when Ioan spotted how cramped the roots of his radish had become.

Ioan enjoyed, “tucking in” his plants.

Then Finny watered them all.

We then went on to label the parts of a plant.

DfES Outcomes for EYFS and National Curriculum (2013)

Science Year 1 programme of study

Plants

  • identify and name a variety of common wild and garden plants, including deciduous and evergreen trees
  • identify and describe the basic structure of a variety of common flowering plants, including trees.

Science Year 2 programme of study

Plants

  • observe and describe how seeds and bulbs grow into mature plants
  • find out and describe how plants need water, light and a suitable temperature to grow and stay healthy.