The Adolescence of Planthood

We have begun the obligatory work of "hardening off" -- a somewhat tedious process of moving the plant trays from the greenhouse each day for a few hours out into the open air and sun.  Gentler, according to the various guide books, than simply throwing them into the deep end of the garden and hoping they quickly learn to swim.  "Hardening off" affords a more gradual opportunity for toughening up that supposedly produces more vigorous and resilient transplants better equipped for the rough and tumble life in full sun, winds and rain.   We accomplished a similarly intended process with the tomato plants a week or so ago, moving the seedlings into larger vessels with more soil to encourage more extensive root development.

It is, it strikes me, the horticultural equivalent of adolescence during which kids-cum-young adults are gently, gradually toughened up for a more resilient adulthood.  This process, too -- let's face it -- can be somewhat tedious for both kids and adults as incrementally more responsibilities and privileges are extended, each with expanding consequence and trust; for the former far too slow and confining while for the latter far too rapid and risky.  All that, to say nothing of the colliding hormones and emotions and melt-downs and sniping from both directions.  It is, nonetheless, a critical step.  I've been around adults who were apparently taken straight from the greenhouse and thrust into the garden with precious little, if any, preparation or transition.  Deprived of that intervening "hardening off" period, it doesn't take much to wilt them in the full sun of ordinary life.  The least little disappointment.  The slightest slight.  And against the whipping vicissitudes of routine experience their fragile stems don't stand a chance.  Life simply -- and relatively quickly -- overwhelms them.

I grouse, then, in these labor intensive days encumbered with the hauling of plants first out and then back in -- "fathering" on an entirely different scale.  But having raised these "children" up from seed I have a powerful investment in their future.  If it's selfishly true that I eventually want the best from them by summer's end in the form of cabbages and cauliflowers and broccoli bunches and the like, in the near term I will necessarily want the best for them.  It's in my interest for them to be healthy and prepared, resilient and strong.  With them, then, until they are ready for life on their own I'll labor through these adolescent days.

Hopefully they won't get around to asking to borrow the car.