What the seasons teach us

Spring is arriving at Green Connect Farm. You notice it in small ways at first. The days stretch a little longer. Seeds germinate faster. Bees become more active. Plants that seemed to be doing very little through winter suddenly begin growing again.

Working on a farm makes it impossible to ignore the seasons. And the longer I spend around them, the more I wonder whether they have something to teach us about how we live.

Modern life seems to expect constant growth. Businesses should keep growing. We should become more productive. Our calendars fill up, our phones keep buzzing and there is always something else we could be doing.

Nature has a very different approach.

A farm cannot be in spring all year.

There are times of extraordinary growth, when it feels as though you can almost watch plants getting bigger. There are times of abundance, when we struggle to harvest everything quickly enough. Then there are times when growth slows, plants die back and the farm becomes quieter.

None of these seasons is more important than another.

Winter is not a failed spring. Plants need periods of slower growth. Soil needs replenishing. Some seeds even need cold conditions before they will germinate.

Perhaps people need seasons too.

There will be periods in our lives when everything seems to be happening. New jobs, new relationships, new ideas and opportunities. There will also be periods when very little seems to change.

We tend to celebrate the first and worry about the second. But spending time on a farm reminds you that not all progress is visible.

There is another lesson in eating with the seasons. Supermarkets have largely removed seasonality from our lives. We can buy many fruits and vegetables throughout the year, so we have forgotten the pleasure of waiting.

On the farm, we wait months for the first tomatoes of summer. When they finally arrive, they are wonderful partly because we haven't had them for a while. Later there will be so many tomatoes we won't know what to do with them. Then, eventually, they will disappear again.

That cycle makes you appreciate things while they are here.

Perhaps that's something else we've lost in our desire to have everything available all the time. Anticipation can make things more valuable.

Spring is a particularly hopeful season. Everywhere you look there are signs of renewal. Seeds that looked lifeless suddenly emerge from the soil. Trees put on new growth. Flowers appear.

But spring doesn't happen without winter.

That's what I find reassuring about spending time in nature. It reminds us that change is normal. Nothing stays the same forever, including the difficult periods.

Sometimes we are growing. Sometimes we are producing. Sometimes we simply need to rest and prepare for what comes next.

Spring reminds us that quiet periods aren't necessarily wasted time. Things may be happening beneath the surface that we cannot yet see.

And eventually, when the conditions are right, it's time to grow again.