Gardeners live by the seasons, yet modern calendars, set into squares within a month, are not oriented to natural cycles. When writing a book about gardening with children, I created a calendar, with the help of my artist daughter Alexandra Hammond, which reflects the seasons in our valley. It made me realize that we rarely see our year laid out in terms of the solar cycle which it represents. See our calendar below:

 

As we all know, in the solar calendar, the most important turning points are the Solstices and Equinoxes. The Fall Equinox is almost here- arriving on September 22 this year. On that day, there will be 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of darkness, and the sun will be shining at an almost perfect perpendicular to the equator.

In our climate, I organize my garden into two main seasons: the winter garden, planted at around the Fall Equinox, and the summer garden, planted around the Spring Equinox.  These days also mark the beginning of fall and of spring, as well as a rough estimate of our two real seasons in the valley: cool and wet, and hot and dry.

The four seasons we see in most children's books are confusing, since they really don't exist here.

 

 

I personally like to celebrate the Equinoxes and Solstices, as a way of orienting to the place where we live. It is no surprise that many traditional holidays, ancient in origin, correspond to these times as well. It is fun to go to a farmers' market this month and see the many harvest vegetables, including pumpkins and winter squashes, which are available at this time of harvest festival.