For most people, spring is when the days turn; when winter is over; that short stretch to summer. It may be when the trees get their leaves and the flowers begin to sprout. Spring is when fashion changes, even my heavy coat returns to the wardrobe waiting autumns blast. In a world where seasonal food is no more, superceeded by refined supply chains. While seed time and harvest is the talk of a strange foreign land. So how can spring be now, when autumn has just commenced? There’s an old saying amongst gardeners: “a penny for the seed and a pound for the hole.” In the spring time you need both a seed, what you will plant, and a hole, the place you will plant it. If the saying deems the hole of one hundred times more value than the plant, how can dirt possess such value?

But think of the hole, that dirt, that place. What kind of soil has it? What nutrients does the soil possess? What amount of light will it receive? What amount of wind blows past it? And how strong will it be? What bugs or diseases reside there? What is the micro-climate? What amount of rain falls? Will there be to much? Will there be too little? What is the chance of a late frost? There are all of these, and so much more to ponder. About something as simple as a hole in the ground or a pot at your door!

Our Northern European climate can be cool, wet and erratic! But we know what we have and what we will get. If a plant requires a long hot, dry and sunny growing season, and you plant it in a hole surrounded by a cool, wet, and erratic climate, will it work? Or a plant that requires shelter is planted in the open, in the prevailing wind, what do you think with happen, success or failure! The hole, the planting, the preparation, the time, all of these need to be considered carefully. To quote the pop song from singers I cannot remember, “it’s not what you do it’s the way that you do it.” Bananarama? Maybe? I think? I don’t want to look it up.

There are things that can be done like create shelter by planting hedges. Soil can be improved by digging and dunging. You can choose plants that suit your conditions. You can be ready and prepared for spring. That is why spring is now. Once your crop is harvested, no matter how modest, the work ceases to be for this year. Spring is far more than the arbitrary turn of a calendar’s page. It is mindset. It is flow. It is process. It is seasonality. It is ceasing to think of then, as if now has no bearing upon it. The sports team trains and trains: but we only see the match. The musician practices and practices: but we only hear the performance. The student studies and studies: but we only know the mark. The gardener works and works: but we only appreciate the harvest. This is life’s lesson and we would do well to learn it.