Month in the life of a gardener: December.
The tasks, problem solving, wildlife spots, learnings and reflections from an organic food grower in a North London kitchen garden.
Welcome to this separate reflection on what it’s like to be an urban organic food grower. I started sharing these insights in March 2023 with snappy videos that condensed moments from across a month, but realise that there’s an opportunity to more deeply share learnings and mistakes with you, rather than just funny little tidbits with no context.
Watch reels of previous months here →
December 2023. / November 2023. / October 2023. / September 2023. / August 2023. / July 2023. / June 2023. / May 2023. / April 2023. / March 2023.
These stories form part of the Food-Fibre-Fashion publication shared to Substack and LinkedIn. There will be stories and musings to raise your awareness of how interconnected our food, fibre and fashion systems are, even when we’re looking in small scale, such as an urban garden.
Wreath-making.
Winter Solstice celebration in the garden, with fire, mead, and wreath-making. Staff on the left, two volunteers, and one of our outgoing trainees taking the photo on their last session.
This is the second in this series of articles — A Month in the Life of an Urban Gardener. To read about the context of where I work, head to the first article.
Watch December 2023 in the form of a reel heree.
Listen here or on Spotify:
Images: 1. Bizarre nature: bindweed growing out of a brick, with accompanying woodlouse; 2. a classically mouldy-looking fungi in the compacted woodchip, also with accompanying woodlouse.
December is about slowing down.
We were hit by frost over the first weekend in December. It didn’t stick, so there wasn’t much damage, but we did have to move anything tender indoors ready for the next wave. The outside sage bed had already been fleeced in anticipation, but some lemon geraniums had been left outside, and the indoor lemon verbena plants needed to be harvested before fleecing.
So an early December task was to do the lovely mindful snipping of the lemon verbena shoots to leave just a few nodes; the plant would go into dormancy and wouldn’t need its leaves, but we can harvest the sherbert-smelling oily stalk and leaves for herbal tea. The naked plants were carefully fleeced and tucked in for winter, and then came the slow process of further lightly chopping the plant into dehydrator trays for drying.
The lemon geraniums and all other cuttings were brought into the polytunnel next to the lemon verbena, and were also fleeced. Most would die back anyway, but keeping them inside under cover will protect them a little better. Any leaves that had dried off were cupped in hand and taken around to anyone I could find to have a whiff. My grandma would use a geranium handcream called Cremolia (though rose geranium, not lemon) and it’s a very comforting smell; I have to stop myself stroking plants when I see them outside of people’s houses. Usually I would also mulch the soil of each pot with a little straw, but I forgot to do this before I put on the fleece, and frankly it’s a pain to remove and replace. My plan is to monitor them and mulch if required in deeper winter; we’re still waiting on another bout of frost as I write this on January 3rd.
Images: 1. Lemon verbena post-harvest and ready for fleecing; 2. fleece over the lemon verbena plants; 3. lemon geranium still smelling lovely.
While I was doing these tasks, my colleagues and our volunteers were continuing to remove scrub from our Big Green Dump for the fire, or rebuilding veg beds around the space with new scaffolding planks. I’d been suffering from migraines and wanted lighter tasks, while others wanted to keep moving to stay warm.
Images: 1-2. Colleagues and volunteer joining in with excitement over the fact that we had Brussels sprouts, even though they were nibbled and stunted.
Mulching.
In stark contrast to November, which was actually full on with lots of maintenance and movement, this month was more about preparation. Some of the team were away, and others would be finishing up for the holidays, not to return until early January. This meant that our key task would be to mulch the fruit trees. Ordinarily you’d do this prior to any frost, because you don’t want to be covering up hard ground that keeps the cold in, but rather protect the ground from the cold.
Mulching is about adding matter of some sort to a tree or shrub or bed to protect the soil and roots from freezing temperatures, and from soil erosion by rain. It can also be used to add nutrition, and although our trees were going into dormancy for winter, come spring they would need a boost. Mulching the fruit trees with a lasange of cardboard, compost and wood chip would allow these matters to slowly degrade; the soil and roots will stay warm, water can be slowed, and the microorganisms and mycorrhizal fungi will receive a dripfeed of nutrients.
With a delivery of five wheelie bins of wood chip from a local tree surgeon (some of which was cotoneaster, smelling strongly of frangipane) we were able to mulch all fruit trees and some of the fruit bushes. We chose not to mulch certain trees, such as the eleagnus, because they’re hardy and take up nutrients well themselves. However, with a bigger load of wood chip, we would also mulch these just for mulching’s sake, so come January when we can access more chip, we’ll also do these. Cardboard isn’t in short supply due to the deliveries that the overall business receives. We create a ring around the base of the tree or shrub, and layer everything up.
Images: 1. Delivery by wheelie bin of wood chip; 2. some of the wood chip was cotoneaster plant that smells of frangipane; 3. close-up of fruit tree mulching; 4. fruit tree mulching with cardboard, compost and wood chip in a doughnut.
This time we had an unusual addition; rather than your standard compost, we had compost loo compost. This means human waste. Having broken down in the compost loo pipe for many years (think it’s 8 since it was installed), it was able to be dug out. Though it has clumped together with the sawdust so you could surmise what it is if you’d been told, it isn’t smelly. We haven’t had it tested though (yet) so we’re not using it directly on crops, however, all research suggests that this is a highly nutritious and safe compost to be using. In effect, it’s how folk use manure (though isn’t left to ferment like a lot of manure dumps are).
After 4+ hours clambering on the ground creating these doughnut layers (a ring so that nothing was touching the tree/shrub trunk therefore avoiding rotting via moisture retention), it was finally time to make my own festive wreath and participate in the fire (which I’ll come back to).
Images: 1. Embers left after one of the earlier December fires; 2. prunings and scrub building up another fire; 3. making a box fire because it was damp out.
Herb teas.
I came in for an additional day’s work to create some herbal tea blends. These are sold in the café as individual teabags for customers, and also as 20 gram bags. It’s part of the slowing down vibe that December offers. As with all the herb tasks, it’s quite a mindful one. You set yourself up in the indoors studio room, put on some classical music, make a cup of tea with a blend of whatever herbs, and mix up dried stuff.
It always takes longer than you expect to do these things, and 5 hours later I’m shattered and in need of being outside. But I’ve started a sort out of our herbs: consolidated some of the previous years’ tubs, topped up all the café jars, made cute bags for sale and weighed all of the 2023 harvest. I’ll have another solo day in January doing a full stock audit ready for the year ahead, and so we’re aware of what we need to harvest and forage — and what we have available to sell.
I blew my nose when I got home and the tissue was green from all the herb powders that had found their way up.
Images: 1. An organic on-site herbal tea blend being mixed up; 2. a cup of herbal tea in a bag; 3. packets of herb tea blends; 4. loose leaf herb tea blends in jars for sale in the café.
Wood store.
Because we’d been having loads of fires, we were getting through loads of wood. In order to start 2024 afresh, we wanted to tidy up the wood store. The tarpaulins had come off, the kiln-dried wood had toppled over and were mixed up with prunings, and there were half-full crates of kindling. There was also a large area of rotten scaffolding planks and other random wood that needed to be processed so they could eventually dry. It was one of those occasions where one “straightforward” task led to a whole 1.5 day job.
I’d organised and consolidated crates of kindling as a starting point and created some sort of structure to the wood store, and then my colleague and a volunteer sorted through and re-piled the kiln-dried wood (for our cob pizza oven) and prunings. I had moved onto the task of sorting through the rotting wet wood, which consequently led to the task of revealing the hidden path underneath. I’d forgotten that we’d previously laid down weed suppressant Mypex to create a path, but now it was under inches of soil from decomposed prunings, leaves and other wood — plus rubble, stacks of snails, and some frogs.
Taking so many hours to even — satisfyingly — clear the area, I had to finish up with the stacking of the wet wood onto upturned plastic bread crates in our next work day. The previous month’s shed clearing had resulted in finding two massive tarpaulins, so we were able to replace the hanging wood store ones, and cover up the new pile I’d made. I truly get a kick out of consolidation and maintenance. But now I realise that the path is hidden all along the Forest Garden, so a decision needs to be made on whether it should be tidied all along. We have to at least tackle the hazel shoots that are low down, and roses that kept nicking the hat off my head. Nevertheless, the now neatened area shows up how we need to refurbish the slippy steps down to the wood store, and edge and stablise the trashed bed where things were dumped. Once these bits are sorted, I can try again with making this area the Dye Garden.
Images: 1. Pile of rotting soggy scaffolding planks and other random woods; 2. the messy wood store before tidying; 3. the tidy covered up wood store and additional section for "bad" wood.
Lavender pruning.
While some folk got on with hacking back the thyme bed to remove it’s woody underbelly (which will remain forever if you don’t cut it out), I started doing the same with our lavender. Apparently this should be done in September pre-frost, but as we’ve established, our frost was rubbish, and also we simply haven’t had capacity. It does seem quite drastic to cut off so much, but they immediately looked more healthy once the year’s growth (dead bits) had gone. There are still plenty shrubs to do, so this will be continued in January, and as our dried lavender stores have run low through not harvesting, we need to get on this.
We also still need to chop the anise hyssop too, but as it was the first full year for this bed, it’s ok leaving that to establish and self seed a bit. The thyme, however, has never been given full attention and it got carried away. With the love it received from a volunteer, it should start to put out new growth next season — though we have tubs and tubs of thyme to process from a whole 2023 backlog. The other herb beds get more continual attention, such as the mints that are generally easy to manage anyway. Herbistan actually looks quite alright these days.
Images: 1. Lavender shrub post-prune; 2. healthy patch of three-cornered leek; 3. a Buckaroo of snails found when clearing a path.
Hive canopy.
One of the bee hives is old, with the wood rotting. The bees had already made a home and it’s difficult for many reasons to shake them into a new hive. They’d already had a stressful arrival into our apiary and were underweight, the weather was acting out, and frankly we didn’t have better equipment to move them into anyway. We have to wait it out. But to slow the effect of rain hitting and staying on the hive, we devised a canopy from polythene and twine. Discovering that this would at least prevent any snowfall staying on the roof, but that we wouldn’t know any real impact from water damage until Spring, we also decided to park a plank of plywood up against the side of the hive where most rotting was occurring.
The only thing we can check is that the wood isn’t completely falling away, which we’re trying to prevent by stopping rain getting directly on it (though moisture still can), and that the bees are alive, which we can check by opening the window. But they gave us a fright. After installation of these two measures, we opened the window to discover the hive empty. We could spot comb in the top box, some capped honey cells… but no bees. After a few minutes of running through scenarios, thinking they absconded (because there wasn’t a pile of dead bees), I spotted a bee slowly crawling. And then another. And another. It was a fairly crappy day weather-wise so we reckon they were simply low in energy, and our opening of the window had allowed the temperature to drop slightly (it’s a wooden block, wool quilting and then a glass window). They had come to the edges of the comb to find out what was going on, and in turn they let us know they were ok.
Images: 2. Warre bee hive covered with a square of polythene and twine to act as a tarpaulin; 2. the hive is situated in a sheltered apiary.
Winter Solstice.
The Winter Solstice was on the 22nd December around 3am. It changes slightly each year, getting deeper into the month a little by little. As we wouldn’t be fully together as a team on the eve of the 21st, we decided to have our solstice celebration a week earlier. This celestial event is also celebrated as a festival, marking a change in the proximity of our Earth to the Sun, and subsequently if we’re going closer to or away from sunlight. In the northern hemisphere for our winter, the solstice marks the shortest day of the year and that we’re in a sense moving towards the light. It doesn’t mean things will get warmer due to the Earth’s thermal inertia (it has to catch up), but daylight hours will steadily increase. In terms of food production, this means plants come out of dormancy to photosynthesise, and will grow again.
One way to celebrate the life that exists even in the depths of winter, is making wreaths. Using evergreen plants and winter berries, you are able to hold on to life. So we played around with the willow and hazel stems to create a base, and wrapped and threaded them with all sorts of greenery to create a wreath each. Using herbs like rosemary, that also dry well, add scent.
Images: 1. evergreen materials for making wreaths; 2. conifer and holly as an evergreen base on a bent hazel wreath with rosehips for colour; 3. finished wreath with view of the campfire in the centre; 4. group photo with us all holding our wreaths.
All of the festivals and markerpoints are celebrated with a fire. It’s primal. Fire = safety. We’d saved half a rosemary bush for burning; it was decimated by flea beetle and needed to be pruned off, and was initially saved for Samhain (All Hallow’s Eve) when we would use it to give gratitude to those lost (rosemary signifies remembrance), which included our garden trainees who had finished their time with us. Torrential rain called that off though. So the dry woody shrub was put back indoors for two weeks, and on that solstice fire it went, going immediately whoosh and putting on such a show for all of its patience.
We gathered around the fire with a cocktail of mead + sparkling wine, feeling heady with the sweetness and the smoke. The mead had been brewing for about 3.5 years, having come from honey of a dead bee family (that didn’t survive winter). I visited each of our honeybee hives and the solitary bee nests, pouring a drip of mead in front of each, drawing a meady cross on those I could reach; an offering to the gods to encourage all bee families to survive.
Images: 1. The half-rosemary bush as big as a person; 2. rosemary bush on the fire; 3. standing around the campfire with a mead cocktail; 4. campfire in full swing.
I write this at the start of January. The temperature is way too warm for how it should be and there are floods all over the country. When one part of the season is off-kilter, the others will be too. Because I’ve only ever known it to be erratic — and previously I wasn’t a gardener so had no real handle on seasonality or resources truly involved in food production — it’s not utterly surprising, but it is still discombobulating.
When you add in the disruption caused by fake rest time over the holidays, early January gives the air of uncertainty. You want to plan, but also you don’t have the energy to plan, despite having “had some time off”. It’s not really time off, as we know we’re in a state of low level stress, and some folk still work (though I did manage not to think about much work, instead wanting to be present in family time). For everyone, January is a recalibration, whether we’ve taken holidays or not. And this goes for gardening too.
Come February we’ll have started sowing, and most pruning will need to have been done — even though we know a frost and snow will likely appear. In the face of uncertainty you simply continue with what you know, as well as experimenting, because you have to try? I sowed some mustard greens in November as a back up succession crop, and they’re only just ready to be planted out, after having been under a light and on heatpads. But we’re not even providing salad as a main crop anymore, so what’s the point? We do what we can to ensure things go to plan, even though whatever we plan doesn’t go to plan, simply to feel somewhat in control. And that’s what gardening — and any semblance of a sustainable mindset — is. Wanting to let nature do it’s thing, but also knowing you need to extract from it. Being an urban gardener is perhaps even more incongruous; you want to allow nature to thrive, you want to encourage knowledge and skill sharing, and yet away from the garden you’re just part of the city machine because your partially-managed pocket is too miniscule to make a difference. Or is it?