What to Do With Your Thinned Seedlings: 5 Ideas
Thinning seedlings helps give small plants the space they need to grow. But what should you do with the unwanted plants? Join farmer Briana Yablonski to learn a handful of ways to use thinned seedlings.
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Whether you’re growing seedlings indoors or direct sowing seeds in the garden, sometimes your plants end up too close together. Tightly packed seedlings have difficulty obtaining the nutrients and water they need and are more likely to develop devastating diseases like powdery mildew. Thinning gives them the space they need to expand.
Although removing extra plants is the right move, plucking out perfectly healthy sprouts is often hard to do! I know I sometimes ask myself why I’m uprooting plants I spent so much time taking care of. Finding a second use for these young crops makes removing them a bit easier.
I’ll cover five things you can do with thinned seedlings to give them a second life. Whether they turn into rich compost or grow into healthy plants, these once-useless plants will help enrich your garden.
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QIS Fiery Sunrise Blend Gomphrena Seeds
1. Replant in a New Container
If you’ve sown your seeds too densely in a cell tray or container, the sprouts will compete for water, nutrients, and light. Leaving them as is will result in stressed and stretched seedlings, so I recommend thinning out some of them. Removing a few of the crowded plants will give the remainders room to expand and allow them to grow into large, healthy transplants.
Some Seedlings Can Tolerate Competition
Before you thin your seedlings to one per cell, recognize that some plants can handle competition. Bunching herbs including dill and cilantro, baby greens, and scallions grow well when they’re transplanted in clumps, so it’s okay if there are up to six plants per cell.
If you end up with more sprouts than you intended, you can thin the unwanted seedlings by snipping them near the soil surface. However, you may have planted ten tomato seeds with the intention of later transplanting ten tomato plants. If that’s the case, you can replant the thinned tomatoes in a new tray or container. They can continue to grow until it’s time to transplant them outdoors.
If you want to replant the ones you remove, take steps to ensure they have a strong root system. If you have multiple sprouts growing in a cell tray, removing the entire root ball is often easier than pulling out individual plants.
Pro tip: Always handle seedlings by their cotyledons rather than stems or true leaves. Breaking a stem or true leaf will hinder or kill the plant. However, since cotyledons will eventually fall off, breaking one of these leaves won’t impact the seedling’s health.
To remove the root ball, gently poke the bottom of the container while carefully tugging on the cotyledons. The plants and their roots should pull out from the container with a bit of finesse. Once the plants are out of the container, gently separate the stems and roots with your fingers. It’s okay if some roots break in the process, but each seedling should have a few roots attached when you’re finished.
After the seedlings are separated, replant each one in an individual container. Make sure to use a well-draining seed starting mix, and choose a container that will support their growth until they’re ready to plant outdoors. Greens like kale, lettuce, and broccoli will happily mature in 4-cell or 6-cell trays, but tomatoes, peppers, and zucchini prefer larger pots.
After the thinned sprouts are in their new containers, water them well. Place them in a bright location free from wind, and continue to keep the soil moist for the following few days. Once they adjust to their new home, you can treat them like your other seed-starting trays.
2. Transplant in the Garden
Roots like carrots, turnips, and radishes grow best when you direct sow the seeds in your garden or raised bed. Tightly spaced baby greens like arugula, lettuce mix, and baby kale also grow well when direct sown.
However, inconsistencies in temperature and moisture mean these seeds don’t always germinate at the correct spacing. You may end up with tightly packed sprouts in one part of your row and an empty section in another. Fortunately, most young seedlings are easy to thin, then transplant.
I like to thin direct-sown seedlings when the plants are still small—one to two sets of true leaves is a good indication it’s time to thin. Start by removing the unwanted ones from crowded sections while making sure to preserve a good root system. If you plan to toss the extras, you can pull them by their stems or cut them near the soil surface.
However, if you intend on planting them in another area of your garden, you should try to preserve the plant’s roots. You can dig them up with some soil or gently pull them up from the ground.
Once the extras are out of the ground, plant them in an area where the seeds didn’t germinate well. Filling in these empty spaces will give you a larger harvest and also help shade out weeds that might otherwise take over. Make sure to water them well after transplanting.
Root vegetables like beets, carrots, radishes, and turnips are more difficult to successfully transplant, but thinning and transplanting young seedlings can help increase your chances of success. Aim to transplant when they’re less than an inch tall, and keep the soil moist in the days following transplanting.
3. Use in Your Kitchen
Some chefs pay a premium price for small vegetables like carrots, radishes, greens, and turnips. While you may be interested in letting your crops grow to maturity before harvesting, thinned seedlings give you the opportunity to enjoy these baby veggies.
You can enjoy roots like carrots, beets, and radishes whole in salads or served on a tray with hummus or a herby yogurt dip. Brassica sprouts like broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower have a sweet and earthy taste similar to kale. You can enjoy these tender greens in a salad or toss them into pasta or soup.
Baby alliums, including onions, chives, and scallions, taste like the mature plants. However, they often have a more subtle flavor. You can toss these young alliums into pasta, use them in pesto, or add them to any dish that would benefit from the addition of onions.
Lettuces and baby greens can be used just like you would use mesclun mix. Toss together some lettuce, arugula, and kale sprouts for a diverse mix perfect for salads and sandwiches.
4. Feed to Chickens
Chickens will eat bolted lettuce, partially rotten tomatoes, and overripe melons. However, they love the tenderness of sprouts. Tossing thinned seedlings is a great way to get rid of the extra plants while continuing the nutrient cycle within your garden.
You can also feed your unwanted sprouts to ducks and pigs. These critters will eat pretty much any seedling, even those we don’t want to munch on. Not only will they enjoy the tasty snacks, but the veggies will provide the animals with essential nutrients.
5. Add to a Compost Pile
If you don’t have another use for your thinned seedlings, you can add them to your compost pile. Any type of seedling is fair game. Since they are tender growth, they are considered a green material. That means they contain a high nitrogen-to-carbon ratio and will break down quickly.
Since seedlings, food waste, grass clippings, and other green materials are high in nitrogen, it’s important to mix them with brown materials high in carbon. Leaves, cardboard, and straw are all easily available brown sources. Ideally, you’ll add one part green materials for every two to four parts brown materials.
You can continue to add sprouts to the compost pile as you thin them. Just make sure to add a few handfuls of leaves or wood chips for each handful of sprouts.
