This coming weekend is an important one in any New Zealand gardener's calendar: the weekend we plant out our vegetable seedlings and start to feel hope that spring - and summer - are really just around the corner.
Except looking at the weather today, it doesn't look as if spring - let alone summer - will ever get here.
DH has lit the fire tonight. For possibly two or more weeks it has remained unlit. I even placed a potted spider plant on top of the woodfire because I believed it would no longer be in use. How wrong I was.
A month or so ago I started seeds in our garage. Watering them religiously every day, it was thrilling when the first signs of green finally started to poke through the soil. Over the last fortnight I have planted many of them in the garden and I continue to check them every day for signs that the life begun under sheltered conditions still endures.
And now, today ... rainy and blustery ... These seeds that I nurtured ... that became my "babies" ... so exposed to the elements. I'm afraid they won't make it until the weekend, let alone produce a generous crop of vegetables come summer.
I still haven't planted out the tomatoes and there's still a few seedlings undercover in the garage waiting for the right conditions before I plant them in the garden. As for those in the garden ... I guess there's always the nursery if they don't survive. But after all the care and attention I've lavished on growing them from seed I'm not sure I could accept nursery-grown seedlings. It would seem too much like betrayal.
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