It’s been an unusual January week. Normally January is our coldest month, but this week has been warm with temperatures over zero degrees Celsius – all snow has melted. In my kitchen garden I see the leftover weeds from 2024’s harvest, calling me to clean it up. There is something to January that calls on me to clean up. Clean the house, clean my mind.

My rosemary plant that I bought still seems to live (it usually doesn’t survive the winter here). The deers have munched on the parsley leaving only a few leaves here and there. The thyme thrives, so does the pepparmint. Apart from that the kitchen garden is a blank canvas once it has been cleared. For gardeners like myself the winter is a time for dreaming and preparing for the season ahead. We look in shops and on websites for seeds and bulbs to buy, we draw sketches of our garden patch to decide where to plant what. Isn’t this something we can bring into our daily lives. To clear away things (weeds) that no longer serve us and let ourselves have a period of daydreaming about what we want to invite (plant) in the coming season?

Yesterday, I found a leftover carrot in garden bed – if that isn’t a carrot for the new season, I don’t know what is!

Johanna