My tea plantation begins

My quest for a tea plant led me to Sue in Ireland, whose camellia sinensis seeds I bought on eBay. They arrived straightaway, as they say over there, and I am just so excited that I am now an aspiring (ahem) tea grower.

Since I don't have much of a green thumb I opted to try the inexpensive seeds instead of a tea plant, and these arrived from Ireland in just six days. The letter that accompanied my packet had such lovely handwriting, I think I'll keep it in case I end up becoming a famous tea grower and need to document my tea plantation's humble beginnings for posterity.

The 10 seeds came in a tiny plastic bag with a photograph of the tea plant in bloom. I gather it could be quite a while before I see any blooms on my tea plant, assuming it does indeed grow for me.

The seeds were larger than I expected. There were actually 10 of them, but I'm giving myself two shots at growing a tea plant, planting just five of them at a time. One of them was a little different looking, but I always like to root for underdogs and didn't want to hurt his (or her) feelings, so I chose him (or her) for this first batch.

You have to soak the seeds for 24 hours in warm water. I asked a gardener friend how I'm supposed to make sure the water stays warm. She told me not to worry about it, just place them in warm water and go on. She is very surprised it said to soak them for 24 hours, but that's what the instructions say, so that's what I did. And remember the movie titled "Hope Floats"? Well, so do camellia sinensis seeds.

The instructions also said to file down "the hard covering around the micropyle" before planting, so I did that, too.

"Germination usually occurs between 28-35 days ..." And now, I wait!