Becky- I guess zones aren't what most people think of them. I would assume that since you are in zone 9b that you would actually start blooming before me; shows what I know
It took forever to transplant those in the individual pots but it has it's pros and cons just like planting in the ground does. We did it this way since we were lacking space to actually plant them in the ground. If I were to plant them in the same space I would have only did 3 or 4 to a row were as with the pots I got 6 or 7 to a row plus we figured it would be easier to just pick up a pot if we decided to keep or compost one than to mark them and dig later. But like I said it has it's pros and cons just the same. I do think the pots were too small for the growth they do though. These were the size smaller than one gallons and they really needed at least 1 gallon pots.
I would think that if you are a month behind us then yes you could plant the 6 week old seedlings 1 month later. If you actually plant them in larger/deeper hole seed trays (I believe they are called tree trays- 5" deep) or in plastic solo cups or the likes you could leave them in longer and plant later as they would have more room to grow and the roots really wouldn't be disturbed when transplanting. I actually had some seedlings bloom that the seeds weren't planted until Oct. My granddaughter found a late seed pod and just had to plant them; it bloomed in mid June.
If you enlarge photo you can see the little seedlings
My granddaughter Raven with her seedlings
Yes we do use Miracle-Gro or something similar. The Miracle-Gro we use is the all-purpose water soluble and the ratio is 24-8-16. We also have used the big 25lb or it may be 50lb bags of the water soluble in whatever ratio is close to a 3-1-2 or 4-1-2 ratio so like 15-5-10 or anything close. We also alternate it with Daniels Plant Food which is now called Nature's Source plant food (not sure when the packaging will be changed over)
http://www.naturessourceplantf...
