When starting plants from seed, it helps if they are kept warm. Once the plants recent a certain size and age, you can move them to different, less warm environment. Eventually, you can plant them outside . This is called the hardening process. ‘Toughening’ up is another way of saying it. If you go from warm to outside in one step, often the plants will die (like my beans recently did).

And, no it is not an exact science as different plants have different needs. And your garden location is different than mine and each year is slightly different. Oh and watch out for those late frosts!!

Ideas, innovation and change also require some ‘hardening’. There is often a tenderness to new ideas and change that are killed off if put too soon into organisations, processes, and so on. Hardening can happen through discussions, games, scenario making, piloting, and so on.

And just like plants, ‘idea’ and ‘change’ hardening is not an exact science.

Photo by Markus Spiske