Month in the life of an urban gardener: December 2024.
The tasks, problem solving, wildlife spots, learnings and reflections from an organic food grower in a North London kitchen garden.
Welcome to this separate reflection — as part of the Food-Fibre-Fashion publication — on what it’s like to be an urban organic food grower. This started as short snappy videos to condense moments across a month, before realising that actually the narrative and context behind them could be useful, whether successes or mistakes.
As this is part of the wider Food-Fibre-Fashion publication that shares essays, articles and resource newsletters, there will be stories and musings to raise your awareness of how interconnected these systems are, even when we’re looking in small scale, such as an urban garden.
Watch reels of previous months here → November 2024. / October 2024. / September 2024. / August 2024. / July 2024. / June 2024. / May 2024. / April 2024. / March 2024. / February 2024. / January 2024. / December 2023. / November 2023. / October 2023. / September 2023. / August 2023. / July 2023. / June 2023. / May 2023. / April 2023. / March 2023.
This is the fourteenth in this series of articles — A Month in the Life of an Urban Gardener. To read about the context of where I work, head to the first article.
Watch December 2024 in the form of a reel here.
You can also listen as a podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts — and below →
Hibernation.
Originally, December 2024 and January 2025 were to be combined as one story. Owing to being absent for the majority of December due to teaching elsewhere, then travelling up north for family time, and then being absent for some of January due to a holiday in Scotland, it felt as though I hadn’t actually done much. But combining months isn’t reflective, really, of what it’s actually like working in food production or a community garden over winter, as there is plenty going on; the tasks have longevity rather than bitty bits, such as mulching over lots of harvests. So here I am with a separate December diary, just written a month after the close.
We talk about hibernation in the winter months. Yes, we have less daylight hours so the garden workday is slightly less productive, and of course we’re battling colder damper temperatures. But, food still grows in winter because we make this the case. And, tasks that can’t be done in spring, summer or autumn because there’s more harvest to deal with, inevitably fall to winter. Gardeners, growers and farmers — all landworkers — just have to grit it out and get stuck in.
Combining the months felt like the whole story would be minimised, and it seems more honest to highlight that there was space to be elsewhere, mentally and physically, just as I should give you the space in reading. Certain tasks have indeed been pushed to February and I personally am feeling the overwhelm and the desire to get going due to the backlog, as it were. Though there were no long-term frosts ensuring we couldn’t work on a practical level, the physical act of getting stuff done was down to the fact that staff went away. We were nourished instead through heartier activities of Magic Pizza Day, a Solstice fire and a Wassail — plus the eyes of a gardener in other circumstances, like trail running through the South Downs.
So, there was no hibernation or slowing down as such, simply less time. But stuff happened regardless, and so I’ll give it all airtime — with breathing space — just as we landworkers have been graced with. This then is my story for December.
Images: 1. A fun lunchtime with a spontaneous latex glove bobble head show from a colleague; 2. Stopping to identify field madder while out on a 23 mile trail run for UK Ultra on the South Downs; 3. Opening slide for the Sustainable Fashion Design course I taught online over 4 days.
Harvesting.
All we harvested in December, I think, was a single sweet pepper, a couple chillis and some three-cornered leek to chop up and add to pizzas. Some bay leaves somewhere were chopped, potentially just for wreath-making though it does grow well and prolifically out of two bushes on our site, so it can take a hacking and consequently a crate was put out for centre visitors to take. Parsley was hacked to avoid it going chewy and to promote new growth, and this was dried on the dehydrator for ground herbs or powder.
Images: 1. Bay for people to add into their festive foliage (or cook with); 2. Parsley ready to dry on the dehydrator; 3. The single sweet pepper we managed to grow harvested for our pizzas.
Maintenance.
Clearing paths — I’d been working down at the bottom of Herbistan during the end of November, removing layers of clay beneath and between Mypex plastic sheeting. Very grubby but very satisfying. And useful to do during crisp weather when not soggy, otherwise the rain makes it miserable. I had one small corner left, so I continued with this early December, disturbing the tiniest tiniest toad (just the length of my thumb tip) hiding under a plastic sheeting flap. I didn’t want to cause more havoc so I left this job and haven’t been down there since, though was heartily pleased with myself for how much I had tidied.
Cutting gorse — it’s a hardy plant so wasn’t particularly top of the priority list, and yet a lot of it was looking dead with some bits encroaching on Herb Terrace. I obviously know gorse is spiky, so I went equipped with gloves. What I hadn’t anticipated was the needles getting through the gloves and staying in my skin. After tidying up the dead bits and mulching, I took off my gloves to discover lots of pinprick red marks. Later that evening with sore irritated hands, I realised I needed to get out at least 30 splinters. My legs also had received damage. Another plant to add to my list of allergens and sensitivities. Gorse we use as a windbreak, and come January it had flowered, being one of the earliest and few nectar sources of winter. Can’t have nice tidy spaces without a bit of hassle.
Images: 1. Dead gorse clearing underway on Herb Terrace; 2. Tiniest toad disturbed on a path; 3. Reaction on legs and hands to gorse splinters.
Trimming lavender — we still had a few small bushes to do, and these ones were around the entrance so of course were required to look good. Hopefully in the coming year we’ll remember to harvest from them. A few cuttings have managed to put on small root systems, so while we won’t have more shrubs soon, it’s always pleasing to make free things.
Planting bulbs — we’d taken receipt of about 500 bulbs saved from St. James’ Park through a person of a person. No idea why they were going spare, but happily jumped on the opportunity. Our volunteers were tasked (via a trainee’s instructions) with digging holes in various formations and planting them, so we’ll see come spring when they ended up doing…
Images: 1. Trimming lavender bushes of dried bits; 2. Volunteers planting ornamental bulbs; 3. Strawflowers still in flower in December.
Magic Pizza Day.
Our cob oven had been mended with new layers of cob and plaster, and after drying for a couple months, was ready for a firing. This was Magic Pizza Day. It was also the day that I successfully kept a fire going in the oven to get it up to temperature hot enough to cook in, and the day I first used an axe to chop wood — successfully for this too.
With these two activities, it’s generally someone else who takes it on, so I don’t get a look in. I’ve never had the responsibility of keeping a fire going or of chopping wood, because other people know how to do this and I go do something else. That’s teamwork. It meant though that I wasn’t confident in these skills, and while I want to learn, it’s also dependent on the scenario and if there’s time. Today was more chill, and we took it in turns to start and keep the fire going, while chopping wood, while watching volunteers.
Images: 1. Chopping wood with a hand axe; 2. Lovely knot pattern on a piece of kiln-dried wood; 3. Keeping a small fire going in the door of the cob oven to slowly bring it up to temperature.
Once the small oven fire had eventually caught alight, using a piece of wool insulation, it needed to be made bigger and slowly pushed further into the oven so that it would build up the internal temperature. We reckon that the pizza folk who were externally hired to use it, weren’t actually knowledgeable about using cob, and brought it up to temperature too quickly so causing the cracks that would eventually cause it to collapse. This is why it was rebuilt. So we eased in gently. I had ended up being fire-watcher, and gradually added thin slivers of chopped kiln-dried wood, pushing the fire closer into the centre, and then building an internal wood fence of sorts around the outside. The metal blowpipe was pushed into the outer ring to encourage oxygen. The whole firing took around 4 hours before we were ready to put a pizza in there.
Alongside this, my colleague had given me some tips on using an axe, and I watched another colleague while they had a go. With some practice — including volunteers having a go — I was able to split the wood, and read the grain as to where I should chop. It was a liberating action. We ran out of suitable wood though, and didn’t need anymore for the oven, so I’ll have to come back to this activity.
Images: 1. Balls of homemade pizza dough; 2. Using the blowpipe to stoke the cob oven fire; 3. Taking a cosy rest by warming up on the side of the cob oven.
While we were monitoring the fire and wood and volunteers, two other colleagues had spent the morning making dough and tomato sauce. Obviously just as integral to a pizza day. Finally around 4pm we were able to make pizzas. We used some store-bought toppings as well as the pepper, three-cornered leek and chillis. Cob oven pizzas take only a few minutes to cook once the temperature of the bricks and cob is high enough, and we took it in turns to shove the uncooked pizza in, twizzle it around with the paddle, and then bring it out for sharing. This is the “magic” part of Magic Pizza Day.
Images: 1. Pizza in the cob oven being turned using the metal paddle; 2. Slice of pizza with homegrown sweet pepper and rehydrated dried oyster mushroom; 3. Making the last pizza into a snowperson shape.
Solstice.
Solstice arrived to conclude the week that I had been teaching each day for a few hours in the afternoon. It meant I missed my Monday and Thursday workdays because it was the first time teaching this course and I wanted to be prepped. After my fourth and final session, I headed over to the garden to breathe again after holding space, and empty my mind of the doom of the fashion industry. We made wreaths, had a fire, drank some homemade booze, I did my mead-beehive ritual, and we all went away fairly early. I was due to head up north for family time so it was a nice peaceful way to close down the year.
Images: 1. Winter Solstice campfire; 2. Mead and wreath-making; 3. The Castle at solstice dusk with planets aligning.
As I mentioned, this was to be a diary entry compiled with January. But when it came to it, felt like it should have its own space. It’s now February 14th as I write this. It took a while post-holidays to get back into writing. Consequently, December feels a while ago. Today the sun is shining with a clear blue sky, but the temperature is still crisp. I now have to return to January to rediscover what happened there too.
A reflection from November’s diary said:
Well, I imagine come January when I write December’s gardener post for you, I’m going to be saying that I was discombobulated due to not getting actual winter, that taking time away from the garden for teaching meant I was disconnected, and that whatever festive time I had was actually taken up with thoughts of what 2025 would bring. — quote from November’s diary.
This does ring true. The to-ing and fro-ing disrupts an ability to settle, and the weather has been frosty then damp then frosty then damp so creating an air of uncertainty. You do bits as and when, so nothing ever feels finished or consolidated to move on. November held this sensation, but I haven’t found a way back to structure and contentment as of yet. It might take just a few more prunings to feel established in 2025.
For the ending of 2024, I actually borrowed the garden’s firebowl and had a New Year’s Eve campfire alone. I’d invited folk around for my birthday (which occurs on the 29th) but was unsure who, if anyone, was coming. There were gusty winds causing apprehension in my decision to start the fire, but I wanted warmth, and perhaps buoyed by my earlier cob oven win, I thought I’d make a go of starting and keeping my own birthday fire going. It was successful, and was the first time I’d ever done this solo. A real upskill. I poured a glass of wine, played Lau - Torsa, and sat amidst swirling embers and background fireworks.
Images: 1. Lunch at vegan restaurant Mildred's with the garden team; 2. New Year's Eve swim in the local reservoir; 3. Firebowl fire in my garden to celebrate my 37th birthday and NYE.