I adore this special little pocket of time between Christmas and the new year, when you can’t be totally certain what day it is but it doesn’t matter. And you know you won’t be bothered by the ping of a work email arriving in your inbox.

Perhaps you’re one of those people who likes to be busy when things quieten down, but I really don’t. I find these strange, formless days, as we step from one year into the next, an invitation to reflect on how this past season unfolded for me and my growing space, and what I might dare to hope the coming season will bring.

I’m a dedicated note taker, so looking back over the past year often involves leafing through my diary, charting the notable movements of the things I’ve grown in the veg patch and considering what conditions may have contributed to their success or decline. Instead of cursing the skies or lamenting my negligence, I try to bid farewell to the season’s mishaps and commit myself anew to fewer avoidable hiccups next time. Every season the lessons abound, especially as the climate’s changes affect the garden and ask us to pay deeper attention to the needs of our plants.

First, I need to be more ruthless when it comes to thinning out the self-seeded plants in my veg patch, as they will compete with crops and affect the yield. I should not panic at the emptiness of early spring, nor fail to honour the spacing that aubergine plants need because, when they’re growing happily in the greenhouse, they will become enormous.

Another lesson learned is the need to repot my chilli plants as they outgrow their containers instead of ignoring them and hoping for the best. And, finally, I need to make time for the Szechuan pepper harvest when the sun is shining in late September – before a heavy autumn rain ruins them.

There have been plenty of triumphs to be celebrated, too, though. The fragrant lemongrass I grew from seed that took care of itself in the corner of the greenhouse; the gifted agretti seedlings that grew well in my soil and offered up an unexpectedly saline, deliciously succulent leafy crop; and the remarkable tomatillos that cropped abundantly in the polytunnel at the farm where I work and took their rightful place as my favourite plant of the year.

While the view from my window may be gloomy and bare, I prefer to imagine a blank(ish) canvas as I organise my seed box and browse through the seed catalogue imagining what next season’s planting might look like. I want to grow edamame, tatsoi and patty pan squash, and to finally set up the barrel pond I planned to install a year ago. What about you?

Source: theguardian.com