Tips for Accurate Transplant Spacing in Your Garden

Why Transplant in the Garden?

Transplants offer bountiful benefits when it comes to growing vegetables in the garden. Not only do you get to control when you plant seedlings but you also get healthier growing plants. If you have warmer weather vegetables that you would like to get a headstart on growing this allows you to prepare those vegetables before the growing season. So when the growing season begins and weather conditions are ideal you already have germinated plants that are ready to go in the soil in the vegetable garden. Transplanting also reduces weed pressures due to them having limited time in the garden. Weeds have a little amount of time to germinate in the garden around the transplants that we added into the garden. Another benefit is improved and faster crop turnaround. By starting the vegetables in transplants it can speed up the amount of time it takes them to germinate meaning less time in the garden area. With less time in the garden, more production is harvested and it allows for another crop to be planted in the same spot. Overall, transplanting allows for healthier and more productive vegetables while saving us time, money, and energy in the garden.

Transplant Spacing

On this week's episode, Travis demonstrates the proper way to ensure transplant spacing. Travis has some Brussel sprout transplants that are ready to go in the ground. He has already laid his drip tape down in the garden. He prefers to turn the drip tape on and let the water pool up around the emitters this will help dictate the spacing for the transplants. However, after laying the drip tape then experienced a heavy amount of rainfall so he did not want to add more moisture to the soil from running the drip tape. Moving on to the next best option for transplant spacing is the Double Dibble Wheel attachment. This dibble wheel attachment works on the Single, Double, and High Arch Wheel Hoe. This double dibble wheel has two wheels attached which is ideal for planting double rows on drip tape. Just simply straddle the drip tape with the two wheels and punch holes on both sides of the tape along the row in the garden. Travis set up his dibble wheels with every other dibble sticking out which is going to allow for about 10 to 12 inch spacing along the row. Before going along the row with the dibble wheel attachment, Travis mentions that he staggered the dibble wheels so that when going along the row there is never two plants right beside each other. This will ensure that the plants have plenty of room to grow and plenty of space in the vegetable garden. After the rain, he could slightly see a hump where the drip tape was laid so Travis just straddles the row with the double dibble wheel making the indentions in the soil for the transplant. This makes for one pass through and marks the planting locations equally along and between the row in the vegetable garden. Finally, all we have to do is insert those transplant plugs into the holes made by the dibble wheel. Then secure the transplants in the ground with a little bit of soil. So for accurate and precise transplant spacing consider looking into our dibble wheel hoe that is available as a single, double, or triple kit. With accurate transplant spacing, we will get higher yields, healthier plants, improved turnaround, and effective environmental impacts.