We are finally at the winter solstice (4.19am today to be precise, when the North Pole is tilted farthest from the sun). This then is the shortest day, nearly nine hours less light than in high summer.
Enough science. Suffice to say, the dark is downhill from here. Yes, there are many weeks of winter still to come – February, not April, is the cruellest month for me – much rain, maybe sleet, perhaps snow. But at least later there is also more light. The first potatoes can go in in late February if you live in the south; early nasturtiums and calendula.
It is light not heat I miss most now. I am a January child who loves being outside by northern seas; whose spirit calls for wet wind and mist, empty beaches, long walks in dank woods.
You can dress for winter, for rain and cold: a waterproof coat, a pair of good boots. I love gardening in rain. The way it cuts out noise and distraction. My world shrinks, becomes smaller – just me and the plants and the task I am doing. A meditation; a tai chi with garden tools.
But there is no denying seed. Like me, they need light. And yes, it’s Christmas, a time of family cheer, but more importantly for me, next Sunday’s sunset will be (a little) later than today’s, with an earlier sunrise only a few weeks away.
Soon enough cosmos, kales, sweet peas, salvias can all be started again inside. We are close to the time of sowing some of my favourite hardy annuals. The winter-sown broad beans are breaking through, with the next sowing six weeks away. The snowdrops, the paperwhites and tulips are stirring.
The new year will bring new growth, new opportunities and new harvests soon enough. So have a happy winter solstice and a very merry Christmas.
Allan Jenkins’s Morning (HarperCollins, £8.99) is out now. Order it for £7.91 from guardianbookshop.com
