If you are one of our 100 plus schools who have already planted their spring garden this year, you might be seeing some sprouts coming up in your schoolyard garden already! Most seeds take a week or two to germinate, or sprout, while others take a little longer. In order to germinate on time, seeds need to stay in moist soil. All of this rain has probably helped your schoolyard gardens, and allowed you to take a break from watering the garden every day!

With tiny hands at work with even tinier seeds, we understand that sometimes gardens can be overplanted with seeds. In your spring garden you may notice some crowded seedlings coming up. For root vegetables especially, it is necessary to thin your seedlings.

What is thinning?

It’s when you pull out or pinch off seedlings that are too close together when they are still young, about a week or two old. Try and identify the larger, stronger-looking seedling and keep it intact when thinning around it. 

Thinning is especially important for root vegetables because they need enough room to develop underground. Refer to our Raised Bed Plant Spacing Guide to determine how much space to put between each seedling. 

Thinning requires steady, gentle hands, and attention to detail. It is most successful when a small group of students (2 or 3) takes their time, slowly moving from plant to plant. Please remind your students to be cautious when thinning their schoolyard garden!

Rather than discarding or composting the seedlings that you pull out, you can throw them in a salad, or have your students each try tasting one on their own! You can eat seedlings of carrots, radishes, lettuce, beets, greens and spinach.

In addition to thinning, an important task that should be done a couple weeks after the garden is first planted is reseeding. After your initial vegetable seedlings start to sprout, you might notice some empty spots in your rows. These could be areas where the seeds were planted too deep, flooded out, or simply where students forgot to plant! To reseed, simply fill in the gaps with new seeds, so that you don’t have empty spots in your schoolyard garden.

For more guidance, watch KCCG’s thinning tutorial video on YouTube: