Plugs are ready-grown young plants that have been sown direct into cell trays and nurtured through their early stages by the nursery. This not only means that the nursery does the difficult bit for you, but if you simply don't have the space or time to sow your own, or have had poor germination or simply forgot, you can still fill your garden and greenhouse with great veggies.
There is more choice than ever now from the seed companies and young plant specialists, and a few even offer organically raised plants, peat-free options and heritage types. In the case of tomatoes you can buy grafted plants as plugs or young potted plants and these have the advantage of being supplied on strong, disease-resistant roots. You can even opt for grafted plants with several different varieties, or even different crops, grafted on.
Grafted plants offer another advantage thanks to their vigour they are often earlier to crop, so for example, you could pick sweet peppers and tomatoes up to a month earlier than with standard or seed-raised types. Of course, this comes at a price.
Plugs may be offered in various sizes from small to super-sized – the bigger the plug the more mature the plant when it arrives. Potted plants are the next stage on and may typically come in 9cm (31/2in) pots.
PLUG PLANT TOP TIPS
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