Keeping seedlings inside for such a long time does not appear either easy for me or good for the plants. While I was wrestling with touch choices, I had an idea this morning, that perhaps I could plant them temporarily outside for a few years. The idea was inspired by the process that I just completed with moving plants from small diameter tubes into large tubes. Larger PVC tubes (6"x24") have sufficient volume to allow reasonable growth for at least 3 years and perhaps a bit more judging by the blogs and pictures I found on the Internet. They will not grow as well as the ones planted in the unlimited space, but I think it's a reasonable compromise for the situation at hands.
The bigger problem is not the growing soil volume but the exposure to the natural elements. I have a strong suspicion that if I keep GS indoors for 5 years they will have very tough time adjusting to the real conditions of Iowa weather patterns.
So, the idea that I came up with this morning was to keep 6" PVC pipes for 3-5 years outside. Once I am ready to move to the large(er) acreage I want to be able to take them with me. With this idea in mind I drew the following sketch:
In order to acclimate young trees to the outside conditions I am planning on taking them outside a few hours at a time, probably in the Spring of 2014 and then planting them in the described fashion in the Fall once they have been exposed to the elements indefinitely. They would be 2 years old by that moment. I am planning on maintaining about 50% additional trees to the target of 20 through this described period. The strongest 20 will take a trip with me to the permanent place, where ever it may be.
Two years later. The idea worked remarkably well and extremely close to as described. The only correction is that two feet spacing between 6" containers is getting too small. I am slowly moving them to other nearby locations to give more room to grow.
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