Unlocking

Are there six seasons?

“One sort of optional thing you might do is to realise there are six seasons instead of four. The poetry of four seasons is all wrong for this part of the planet, and this may explain why we are so depressed so much of the time.

I mean, Spring doesn’t feel like Spring a lot of the time, and November is all wrong for Fall and so on. Here is the truth about the seasons: Spring is May and June!

What could be springier than May and June? Summer is July and August. Really hot, right?

Autumn is September and October. See the pumpkins? Smell those burning leaves.

Next comes the season called “Locking.” That is when Nature shuts everything down. November and December aren’t Winter. They’re Locking.

Next comes Winter, January and February. Boy! Are they ever cold! What comes next? Not Spring. Unlocking comes next. What else could April be?”

If this is not nice, what is? Advice for the young. Kurt Vonnegut, 2013

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It’s March and I am totally feeling this.

Yesterday it rained heavily but I had to be in the gardens. I didn’t have to be. But I had to be. I really felt a need to be in the rain and working. I’m unlocking.

Yesterday, edging the Walled Garden beds. Not done for two years. We’ve lost quite a bit of the original bed.

The day dried up; this morning was utterly glorious. Coats off, warm breeze, sun on my face morning. Then, clouds rolled in. Woah it felt cold. I walked into the house where it felt reassuringly warm again.

I love this quote from American writer Kurt Vonnegut; this idea. Now, I fully subscribe to it. I am almost thinking of changing the titles of my handbooks to align with Vonnegut’s Seasons.

I do believe, now in March, we are unlocking.

It isn’t Spring.

There is nothing ‘springy’ about the weather. The year feels as if is spluttering back into movement like an old petrol mower, started again after months the shed.

Winter to me is a period of deep rest, reflection and mediation. That needs unlocking not ‘springing’. The nights are still very cool yet in the day, the sun is climbing in the sky.

Unlocking Lemon Verbena, protected in the studio.

It is light here at 6.30am. I can feel my energy returning.

Still bright at 5.30pm. A palpable sense of oppotunity and optimism.

I am beginning two months of bed edging, weeding and preparing now in the gardens. Clearing and redefining beds. Planting out. Sowing green manures. Lifting, dividing and relocating perennials. Planting trees.

This is a period of action before rapid growth.

Seasons, rhythm and cycles are very important to me. I never did quite feel aligned to just four.

Does ‘unlocking’ describe March and April to you well? Coming out of the winter, blinking in the bright light.

By April, soils will feel warm to the hand. Trees will bud but it isn’t until May until they truly ‘spring’.

The next two months are some of the busiest of the growing year. I am unlocking into action.

Beginnings of the annual perennial weed action. Unlocking has got me really excited to get stuck in. It is weeks worth of work. Just keep going…

Emergence of perennials. I’ll begin clearing last years growth off these now.

Grasses emerging.

Hit the like button. It’s just there. Go on. It helps me no end. And how about a comment too…