“This is really why I made my daughters learn to garden—so they would always have a mother to love them, long after I am gone.” 
―Robin Wall Kimmerer

It might still be winter, but the seed catalogue has arrived, just as it has for the last 50 years, and the tradition to hunker down in a comfortable chair to see what’s being offered that I haven’t tried growing before is an exploration and a celebration. I’ve already sown some vegetable seeds in containers in my indoor mini-greenhouses to transfer at the appropriate times to the garden. Of course, the garlic and the tulips were planted in early November, and when the green tips push through the leaf mulch I’ll know that spring has arrived. Soon after I’ll test how some early spinach does before committing to a larger patch in the garden. When my hand feels some warmth resting on the soil, many cold-weather vegetables will be ready to be seeded or transplanted into the garden.

Last year’s garden did remarkably well: pea vines grew five feet tall in a fifty-foot row and a second sowing in late August yielded an autumn harvest. We were eating kale through to the end of December. The harvest of fifteen other vegetables was plentiful, and the yield of two bushels of squash enabled me to share them with others. The rains came at the right time,and summer’s heat was sufficient to get aubergine, enough hot peppers to make a year’s worth of hot sauce, and four generations of basil and beans. The tomatoes were happy too. The beautiful broad dark green squash leaves, some bursting out of the compost, were a joy to see.

Can we expect this year’s local gardens to measure up to last year’s? Perhaps the heat experienced in the summer of 2024 was a mirage. Around the world, many places experienced the tragedy of floods or severe drought. Are we playing a game of dumb luck now when we store seeds for the next year and expect a positive outcome? 

Stable weather has become a roll of the dice. More than likely scientists aren’t speaking about weather in 2025 but about climate breakdown. And yet, and yet, corrupted politicians and grotesquely indulged westerners keep up the pretence that a cruise or a flight doesn’t contribute to more CO2 in the air, and in any case everyone is doing the same thing. This is an example of green criminality. 

In 2023 the garden produced hardly anytomatoes, and only the lettuce varieties did really well. It rained too much and too hard, making for a cold summer. The problem was the reverse in other parts of the world. Parched soil and sudden floods caused havoc, leading to the poorest people wondering if they were to survive. 

In Canada and elsewhere, market gardeners wouldn’t dream of not having large greenhouses, which are their insurance against unpredictable weather, and many backyard gardens have them as well. 

When all those joyous seeds arrive in a box by post, or when you first see those racks of seeds at the local hardware store proclaiming the cycle of life, a newfound doubt lingers upon opening those seed packets. This year is already on course to become a scorcher—think Los Angeles. And with good reason: the last 25 years of accelerating climate upheaval have brought a litany of uncertainties to plague farmers and home gardeners alike.

But growing an organic garden is more than starry-eyed hope for stable weather and luck in 2025. It’s an action that confirms our commitment to the planet’s fecundity, its beauty and biodiversity, as well as to ourselves. It is a sweet statement of trust and gratitude that rebels against the thoughtless consumerism that blankets many of the decisions that have led to the climate crisis. It can be also a visceral protest against the industrial farming that tries to pass as nurturing food.

The decision to garden, Margaret Atwood says, “is not a rational act.” Planning a garden, envisioning its success and finally realizing a cornucopia of healthy plants is an act of agency accomplished by dedicated work. Picking up a hoe or a spade becomes an act of defiance.

If this is the year when you consider digging up that lawn to plant a flower garden to encourage pollinators to visit, or dream of going out in the morning to pick a cucumber or bite into a tomato, you couldn’t have chosen a better time to stand up for besieged Nature, for we are on the cusp of losing it all. After all, for decades the science has detailed how lawns are basically dead zones, so why not vote for life?   https://tinyurl.com/lawns-climate-change  Even after one season, life comes back to a garden’s soil.  When you add even a small pool of water, insects and birds flourish that much more easily.

Here are some seed catalogues to choose from: https://www.thegardenwebsite.com/plant-seed-catalogues.html

Bonne chance!

“’Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus. Our bodies are our gardens to the which our wills are gardeners.” 
—William Shakespeare, Othello 

“A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books.”
—Walt Whitman, Song of Myself