My least favourite part of gardening

I love starting plants from seed, especially tomatoes. There are so many varieties to try that you can never find in a grocery store, a local garden centre or even a farmers' market.  This year I'm growing varieties I've been reading about over the last few years:  Federale, Black Brandywine, Green Zebra, Stupice, Druzba, Black Cherry and Black Prince (an endangered variety that is going to be my first foray into seed saving in the fall).  I also started a bunch of other veggies and some annuals in the basement.

The only drawback of all of this winter productivity ... hardening off.  Bringing everything up the stairs and outside for an hour on day 1, a couple of hours on day 2, several hours on day 3, etc.  I have to admit that I have been very bad at this in the past and, for the most part, my plants have survived after showing me in no uncertain terms that planting them too early has not been appreciated.  So this year I aim to more closely adhere to a hardening off schedule that will hopefully make things easier on the plants.

I spent the first three days lugging up and down stairs but today have left most of the plants in a cold frame.  I did cheat and plant a couple of things in the garden just to push the boundaries a bit.  We'll see what happens.  I look forward to all of those yummy tomatoes in a couple of months but until then I'm going to complain about the chore of hardening off.