Gardening has a language problem. You open a seed packet or a grow guide and suddenly you're being told to prick out, pot up and harden off, as if everyone was born knowing what that means. Nobody was. We all had to look it up (or quietly nod along and hope for the best).
Our motto is gardening, minus the gatekeeping, so here are five of the most common bits of growing jargon, translated into plain English, in roughly the order you'll meet them.
1. True leaves
What it means: the first proper leaves a seedling grows, the ones that actually look like the plant it's going to become.
When a seed sprouts, the first leaves you see are usually seed leaves (gardeners also call them cotyledons). They're often simple, rounded or oval, and look nothing like the grown-up plant. A tomato's seed leaves are thin and smooth, for example, but its true leaves are jagged and smell unmistakably of tomato.
Why it matters: lots of instructions use true leaves as a timer. "Move seedlings once they have two true leaves" is far more useful than a date on a calendar, because every windowsill grows at a different pace.
What to do: look for the second set of leaves to appear above the first pair. That's your signal.
2. Pricking out
What it means: gently lifting tiny seedlings out of the tray or pot they were sown in, and giving each one its own space.
If you sow lots of seeds together, they'll soon be elbowing each other for light and water. Pricking out separates them so each one can grow properly.
How to do it:
- Water the seedlings an hour or so beforehand so the compost holds together.
- Fill small pots with fresh peat-free compost and make a hole in each with a pencil or chopstick.
- Loosen a seedling from underneath with the pencil, then hold it by a leaf, never the stem. A seedling can grow a new leaf, but a squashed stem is game over.
- Lower it into its new hole, firm the compost gently around it, and water.
3. Thinning out
What it means: removing some seedlings so the ones left behind have room to grow.
It's pricking out's ruthless cousin. Instead of moving the extras, you pull or snip them out and leave the strongest ones standing at the right spacing. It's mostly used for crops sown straight into the ground or a big container (that's direct sowing, another bit of jargon for you), like carrots, radishes and lettuce.
How to do it: snip unwanted seedlings off at soil level with small scissors rather than yanking them out, so you don't disturb the roots of the ones you're keeping. Many thinnings (salad leaves, beetroot leaves) are perfectly edible, so nothing goes to waste.
The exception: some plants are happy growing in little clumps. Beetroot "seeds" are actually clusters of several seeds, and they can be left to grow together as a cluster for a crop of small, sweet beets. That's exactly how we suggest growing the rainbow beetroot in our kit, so no thinning required.
4. Potting up (or potting on)
What it means: moving a young plant from a small pot into a bigger one, because its roots have run out of room.
Potting up and potting on mean the same thing, so don't worry if you see both. Plants grown in pots that are too small for too long get stressed and stop growing well.
How to tell it's time: roots poking out of the drainage holes, or a plant that dries out within a day of watering.
How to do it:
- Water the plant first.
- Choose a pot just one or two sizes bigger. Jumping straight into a giant pot leaves lots of cold, soggy compost around a small root system.
- Add some compost to the bottom of the new pot, ease the plant out of its old one, and set it in at the same depth it was growing before. (Tomatoes are the famous exception: they love being planted deeper.)
- Fill in around the sides, firm gently and water well.
This is also a brilliant moment to mix plant feed into the fresh compost. It's exactly what we do in The Zing Ping herb kit: when your herbs are ready to move up into bigger pots, you mix the feed from the kit into the new compost so they've got food waiting for them.
5. Hardening off
What it means: slowly getting plants raised indoors used to life outside, before you plant them out for good.
A seedling that's grown up on a cosy windowsill has never felt wind, chilly nights or full sun. Put it straight outside and it can sulk, scorch or collapse. Hardening off is basically a gentle acclimatisation programme.
How to do it:
- Start by putting plants outside in a sheltered, lightly shaded spot for a few hours on a mild day, then bring them back in.
- Over the next week or two, leave them out a little longer each day, and give them a bit more sun and breeze.
- Once they're happy outside day and night, they're ready to plant out.
A Scottish note: our last frosts tend to come later than further south, so don't let a sunny April afternoon fool you. Keep an eye on the forecast, and bring tender plants like tomatoes and courgettes back inside if a cold night is on the way. If you have a cold frame or a mini greenhouse, it makes hardening off much easier, but a sheltered doorstep works too.
Still stuck on a word?
There's more where that came from. In part two of the jargon buster we decode leggy seedlings, pinching out, bolting, top dressing and lasagne planting.
If you've come across a gardening term that's left you scratching your head, email us at laura@andeye.com and it might just end up in the next jargon buster.
Every one of our Grow Box kits comes with a grow guide written in plain English, so you can get on with the fun bit. And because Laura Florals is a social enterprise, every kit funds living wage jobs and horticultural training right here in Ayrshire.
Have a grow,
Laura x
