if your plants have taken up the dirt, to transplant you should be able to tilt the pot on it's side and SLOWLY work/slide it out. If it has taken up all the dirt space then you can transplant. Most of the time if all the space is taken up it should be fairly EASY to take out. Just don't straight rip it up, even though I had a plant the last go around that I could just grab by the bottom of the stalk and lift straight out the pot...roots, dirt, and all! It's all really dependent on your root structure you got going on....