When to move plant outside from indoors?

Hi all,

I started my plants indoors this year and I want to shift them outdoors. The weather is finally good so I’m looking to shift them this weekend.

I currently have the lights on 5pm to 11 am. I’m looking to move them outside on Friday/Saturday.

My question is when should I move them outside, what time of day, with the current light schedule they are on. They are either going to get more light or less light for one day.

Also, I’m going to transplant to 25 gallon pots.


Thanks for the help!

You want to gradually get your girls used to the intensity of the sun. I start by putting them out side and bringing back in at the first sing of drooping. Bring them out and try again tomorrow until the stand up. It is called hardening. Google. But easy. Just pay attention.

i allready have 2 outside aclimatizing, its down to 5 degrees at night and we have been having glorius weather.

can you look up your local weather and seeing when the last frost is? a good gardening site will help

were only just getting 14 hrs of daylight at the moment

MICHI-CAN said:

You want to gradually get your girls used to the intensity of the sun. I start by putting them out side and bringing back in at the first sing of drooping. Bring them out and try again tomorrow until the stand up. It is called hardening. Google. But easy. Just pay attention.

Click to expand...

That is going to be hard because I work 11 hour days. I don’t work fri, sat, and Sunday so that should help.
It stays light 6:30 - 8 right now.
Can I get them off their schedule to start getting them outside? How can I switch their light schedule with what they are currently on?

go go kid said:

i allready have 2 outside aclimatizing, its down to 5 degrees at night and we have been having glorius weather.

can you look up your local weather and seeing when the last frost is? a good gardening site will help

were only just getting 14 hrs of daylight at the moment

Click to expand...

Last frost just happened.
I just don’t know how to change the light schedule??

Weedhuntfish said:

Last frost just happened.
I just don’t know how to change the light schedule??

Click to expand...

Just watch your local news for sunrise and set times. Do the math. Over 13.5 hours you are good. Set them under a overhang or in shadow. Only way I know if at work. Did it. Takes longer and miss a few weeks of energy. But no big deal.

Happy growing and peace.

Weedhuntfish said:

Last frost just happened.
I just don’t know how to change the light schedule??

Click to expand...

how do you mean change the light cycle, do you have them indoors under 18/6 or 24/0 light and want to change it to daylight hours? if so, as michi-can just said, set your light timr to the 13.5 or what ever your daylight hours are to match it and your good to go.
or are you meaning something else?

Weedhuntfish said:

I currently have the lights on 5pm to 11 am.

Click to expand...

Is this what you meant the first time? You have the lights turned ON 5 PM to 11 AM?

BeastLebanese said:

Is this what you meant the first time? You have the lights turned ON 5 PM to 11 AM?

Click to expand...

Yes that is correct. Can I just switch them to 6:30am to 8 pm to match my current outdoor sunrise/sunset schedule?

yes, but mine are on from 6am untill 8 pm in the evening. i have been leaving the plants, well there just out of the seedling stage to small plantlets.
outside for the daylight hours and bringing them in just b 4 dark into a tent for the night.
i have 2 2 foot tall plants that im leaving outside all day and a;ll night , they seem to be doing well although growth is very slow, but there still alive and they have survived a small frost allready. so im not worried about them

sounds like were not too far away from each other, im uk based. but yes you can do that

Be super careful about bringing bugs etc into the grow tent. Last thing you want is bring an infestation into your indoor environment. You may have already though about/planned for this but just thought I would throw that out there.

Weedhuntfish said:

Yes that is correct. Can I just switch them to 6:30am to 8 pm to match my current outdoor sunrise/sunset schedule?

Click to expand...

Thank you for the clarification.

I was hoping that maybe you meant you had the light on from 5am-11pm, glad I asked.
I dunno man, hard to say what might happen. I've only ever vegged my stuff for outdoor with the lights on during the day, cause that's when they will eventually be getting it from the sun when they go outdoors. Might stress them to just flip the schedule like that. Changes are best done gradually, as they've clearly been on a completely opposite schedule. They're still young though so they could bounce back and be fine, just be careful not to drop the hours too quick.

One time something like this happened to me when I was in the process of switching things over and moving stuff around between grows. It was when I had some stuff in the veg room with light on during the day, and a flower room with light on at night. If I threw the stuff from veg into flower with the opposite schedule it woulda stressed them out. It's like if all of a sudden you got a full-time midnight job.

Your situation is sorta like that, but reversed. Giving them 48 hours of light may help reset their clock, then working your way from 18 hours lights ON, during the DAY, when the sun is shining out, down to about 15 hours light ON a day over the next few weeks, should be good. If you can time it where they go outside when they're down to 15 hours that should be fine. Once they're down to 15 hours lights on during the day try and bring them outside for a few hours a day for a few days, at least, to try and acclimate them to the outdoors before transplanting outside.

Hope this helps, if you have any more questions let me know..

Put mine out almost a week ago. I’m at 45 degrees Lat. we passed 14 hours daylight Saturday. They were in a greenhouse prior getting natural sunlight supplemented with a KIND LED. No issues with sunburn.
in the past I waited until early to mid May and waited until the forecast called for partly cloudy days.