Sir, – One of the great joys for the gardener is the process of buying packets of annual seeds in January, sowing them indoors in seed trays on the kitchen window sill or any warm indoor spot in February, March and April, and then potting them on when they have germinated and grown to a reasonable size. The next step is the process of “hardening off”. This is when the emerging – but still tender – plants are introduced to the real world in late April before final planting out in the flower beds in May.
Hardening off usually entails getting the tender plants used to the cool and windy environment of late spring.
Over the weekend, I began to put out my plants for hardening off, but almost immediately they began to wilt from exposure, not to the cold or wind, but to the high Mayo temperature of 18 Celsius. Met Éireann tells me this will continue for another week.
I haven’t dared tell the plants yet, but they are already muttering something about global warming. – Yours, etc,
GRAEME GUTHRIE,
Westport,
Co Mayo.