My kitchen table is covered with partially used seed packets from previous years alongside the tree and seed catalogs for 2025. February is the month I celebrate my love of plants by ordering what I plan to plant when spring thaws the now-frozen, snow-covered landscape. Winter months are a wonderful time to dream and design! The garden journal in which I take notes year-round is a helpful reflection tool.

What worked well last year? What do I want more of? For me, garlic and dry beans continue to be reliable, resilient and rewarding crops. Each year I plant a few more garlic cloves and try a new bean variety.

As I flip through the Fedco seed catalog, the Scarlet runner bean entices me with a description of “brilliant scarlet blossoms that attract hummingbirds” and whose “gorgeous purple and black mottled seeds may be the most exquisite in our catalog.” The notation that it is “especially attractive to pollinators” tips my attraction over into commitment, and I add this pole bean variety to my cart.

What might I let go of? For a decade I’ve tried unsuccessfully to grow peppers and eggplants. I love ratatouille and held a dream of growing everything I need for that recipe. This year I acknowledge that my many, varied attempts at hospitality haven’t born fruit, and it is time to let go. Why is it so hard to do that?! I encourage my mindset to lean into this letting go that will create an opening to consider new possibilities. 

Where are my interests now? An area of interest is experimenting with more perennials. Annual veggies are resource intensive. I don’t even want to add up how much time, energy and money I put into a decade of growing pepper and eggplant foliage! What can I try that might come back year after year? Perhaps I will start a new relationship, inviting sea kale to move into the soil space I’m freeing up this year.

Reflecting like this helps to inform and inspire my planning along with mindful consideration of other inputs. What is the fertility of soil, amount of sunlight, availability of water and temperature zone where I wish to plant? Will structural supports be needed, such as preparation for new garden areas, fences for protection or trellises for support? How much time, energy and finances do I realistically have to invest during this next growing season?

From where I sit as I write this reflection, I’m looking out across the winter gardens to the orchard and am reminded that February is also the time of pruning dormant apple trees. This removal of branches that are dead, diseased or damaged is so that the trees may have better health and more fruit.

Self-reflection and pruning directed towards the outer landscape can also be fruitful when turned inward. Jesus says, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful” (John 15:1-2, NIV). What might I let go of this year so that my inner garden might bear more fruit?  

Recipe: Winter citrus salad

This simple salad features seasonal fruit that will brighten a winter’s day. All ingredients began as seeds with some (olives and oranges in particular) maturing to be the fruit of trees. Maybe next year I can make this using sea kale!

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice or red wine vinegar
• ⅛ teaspoon each salt and pepper to taste
• 5 ounces salad greens of your choice
• 2 oranges, peeled, sliced 
• Kalamata olives, pitted, chopped
• Red onion, thin slices or rings (quick pickled onions are lovely)

Instructions

1. Prepare salad dressing by whisking together olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Alternatively, put them into a small jar with a tight fitting lid and shake.
2. Toss salad greens with the dressing just before serving.
3. Top with oranges, olives and onions.
4. Enjoy!