By Blake Davis

Last year on the solstice, I sat around the fire with a small group of close friends who had just experienced the darkest year of our lives.

I handed out slips of paper and pens, and we wrote down the things we needed to release: grief, failures, heavy moments… and threw them to the flames.

Some were read aloud, some were burned in silence. 

Fire somehow cleanses and transitions me. Burning what no longer holds me helps me move forward. 

Winter always hits hard for me. Last year, I strove to prepare the garden and soil for the first freeze, but I hadn’t prepared my mind or spirit. I went to bed with a green, life-filled garden and a few late-blooming hydrangeas. When I looked out the window in the morning, it was brown, still, and lifeless. And yet I still layered up, put my headlamp on and forced myself to go out into the cold and continue striving to make progress. When spring came I still didn’t feel ready, and I was exhausted.

In Down To Earth, Monty Don describes the garden in December as “stripped of all dignity.”
He writes about the melancholy of the season, but also reminds us that this is the time to sharpen our secateurs to prepare for spring.

My grandfather called it "lay by time." A time of resting, of family gatherings, sharpening tools, repairing machinery, and planning for the next growing season.

Mulch: Covered and Deprived of Light

I have three young kids, so when the clocks change, our household experiences some… emotions… as young bodies shift meal, sleep and activity schedules.

My thirteen-month-old has a precise and consistent inner clock that wakes him ready for an adventure at 5:30am every morning. 

Unfortunately, on November 2nd his body clock remained consistent without understanding the clocks all fell back an hour.
In the summer, I loved our sunrise walks. Now he pounds his little palms on the door, wanting to go out into the cold dark. I’m not as impervious to cold; my cheeks aren’t as cutely insulated. 

The season of layers and covering, of warmth, protection and preservation has begun.
It’s time to cover our bodies and our roots. This is where mulch comes in.

I have literally tons of wood chip mulch in my yard.

Last year I built a relationship with a local tree service that dumped some mulch for me (this saves them dumping fees, so it’s a win-win).

This year I told them they could drop more if they were in my area.

There was a bit of a language barrier, and when my wife called me at work as they were dumping their 6th five-foot-tall pile of mulch, I had to rush out to thank them for their enthusiasm, but explain that until I could finish saving for an old tractor with a bucket, it’ll take me years to spread more with my pitchfork and small gorilla cart. So asked them no to delivery more until I call. 

On a completely unrelated note, if you know anyone who needs mulch, please, dear God, send them to me. 

Mulch is fascinating. It can cover, protect, warm, AND nourish. A good layer keeps cold air from stealing warmth and moisture from the roots, protecting water when the topsoil freezes, and blocking weeds from competing for energy. 

And what I love most is that even when I can’t get to the 5 full remaining piles, it still does its work.

Beneath the surface, fungi and bacteria break down the wood fibers, creating heat as they decompose. That’s why steam rises from the mulch mountains in my back yard.
Over time, those microbes turn the wood into dark, crumbly humus rich in minerals and organic matter which feeds the soil it’s been protecting all along.

Explaining this to my 3-year-old as she helped me spread some mulch before our first freeze, she said “It's like a warm winter sweater for the roots.”

Even deprived of light, even if I can’t pread all the mulch before my youngest goes to college, it keeps working. Its natural state is to break down and nourish whatever is beneath it. 

That’s what I remind myself when the sun sets at 4:30pm (or the baby wakes up at 4:30am) and I feel trapped as the sunlight hours shrink to be in line with the hours I have to spend working to pay the bills.

Progress and nourishment is still happening in the dark, beneath the surface, tending the plants when the sun and I cannot. 

Sharpening and Tending

Like the everests of mulch, quietly decomposing, it’s good for me to take a rest to honor this changing of seasons rather than resist it. Winter is our permission to pause, reflect and reset. 

I’m practicing seeing the solstice season as a time to sit in the darkness intentionally. To name what failed, to release what burned, and then to sharpen my tools and plans for what’s coming next. To oil the wooden handles with linseed oil. To file the nicks out of shears and give them new edges. To make sure I have clear plans before the seed catalogues start arriving in my mailbox so this year I don’t black out and buy more than I can possibly tend or stratify in time. To schedule time in my calendar to have coffee with other gardeners who may also be feeling surrounded by the dark and cold so we can dream about spring together. 

The little acts feel like a prayer to me. Mulching and praying over the plants with my daughter. Preparing for spring without rushing me towards it. Not a distraction from the dark and dormant seasons, but a conscious leaning into the rest and biological act of helping insurmountable mountains decompose into mineral rich nourishment from which warmth and new life will bloom with the coming of the sun. 

The Light Returns

Last week I took my kids camping for the first time. We set up a tent in the back yard, cooked hotdogs and s’mores around the fire, and I told old boy scout stories. 

After my wife took the baby inside, the older two and I huddled in the tent and slept horribly. 

As we trudged back to the house, winding around the giant mulch piles, my five-year-old said, “Daddly, I LOVE fires. And camping. I don’t mind the cold.” 

This is what the solstice is. Last year I burned those written expressions of struggle so that I could try to move on to the net thing. Now I’m trying to lean in, not to distract from and cope with the dark just to get me to spring. But to seek ways to make light and warmth within it. 

The ashes from notes of last year’s solstice fire have already mixed with the soil alongside the mulch that warms the ground and feeds the roots.
Everything that has burned, broken down, or covered is still working. Not distracting itself to get to spring faster. But doing its work within (not despite) the cold.

I can let the mulch and ash do their job while I rest and sharpen and trust the work being done in the dark without feeling like I need to strive in discomfort. 

And in its time, without rushing, spring will always come again.
This year, I might even feel ready for it. 

​​A Few Things I’m Going to Try to Help Me (and my garden) Weather the Season

• Mulch the trees and trust their work.

• Get outside daily to stare at the sky, no matter the weather.

• Clear out some clutter to make room to rest, sharpening and tinkering.

• Attend the in-person Master Gardener gatherings. 

• Schedule coffee with another gardener who’s also missing the extended daylight.

• Rest intentionally.

• Give my houseplants some much-needed prioritization.

• Make s’mores with my kids.