the four-season potager

the four-season potager is our refrigerator, our greengrocer. from middling-autumn through to winter’s end nothing much will grow yet they hold steady in living storage in this mild climate. to harvest our vegetables fresh throughout the dark side of the year is a pleasure and a convenience we’d not willingly give up.

with their roots cosy in their microbiotic villages spending a quiet season contentedly holding the soil through deluge and frost alike, these plants are sweetening and vividly alive. anything imported cannot possibly compare to the freshness and flavour and nutrient density of our immediate harvest.

the one challenge of the winter potager is the habit of harvesting. while nothing need now fester neglected in the back of the fridge, neither can we just throw it open at dinner hour. adapting a life to a daily combing of the garden for ingredients, preferably within the brief hours of light and between rainstorms, it’s an art. i have always liked to pair harvest-time with my return from the barn, milk pail on my arm, from a goat walk, with an egg in my pocket, or while balancing an armful of firewood.

the winter kitchen garden otherwise suits my lazy winter body. i needn’t water, nor weed, nor sow or plant. if the slugs pester the veg i invite the ducks in for a feast around the edges, brief enough that they don’t eat the plants themselves. i should mulch more, but that’s about it.

i’ll get round to it before heavy frosts batter anything. the more delicate lettuces, though themselves hardy varieties, get to sleep in the warmth of the old coldframe. but stoic kale and stout cabbage, leek, mizuna, perennial spinach stand out, come what may. brussels await solstice, broccolis will hit their stride with longer days. carrots, parsnips, improve. sage, rosemary, thyme, calendula, persist.

it’s been a tough year, but anything in the winter potager is money in the carbon bank. trains may get stuck, roads get washed out or snowed in, fuel may be rationed, shelves may be emptied. the potager needs no shopping, no refrigeration, no trucking, no ferrying. preserving has ebbed but these good ingredients just hang about living their good long lives.

my films and writings look at just this sort of resilience. for more, watch ‘coldframe’ from the journal of small work series or get a paid subscription to watch a year of monthly farm tours. look out for new small works in the coming year.

thanks for reading, commenting, sharing, supporting. ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡

coldframe

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February 25, 2025

welcome to the monthly matinée, a retrospective of the appleturnover long-form films. next up is coldframe.