Finding Growth Beneath the Surface
By the time February rolls around, I start to feel it. Not just the cold, but the quiet. At first, winter feels beautiful and that first snowfall is always looked at in awe of the beauty. After the rush of harvest season, the stillness almost feels earned. I do welcome it. But as the weeks stretch on, that quiet shifts. The garden beds are buried in snow and the compost pile is frozen solid. There’s no reason to step outside morning or evening to check on anything.
And without really meaning to, I begin to feel a little untethered.
Gardening has become more than something I do. It gives my days rhythm. When my hands are in the soil, my mind calms. When I’m outside tending to gardens, I feel like myself in a way that’s hard to describe. So when winter takes that away, even temporarily, it doesn’t just remove activity, it removes structure. It removes a version of me that feels capable and grounded.
Two years ago, I stepped away from a nursing career that had shaped my adult life and, if I’m honest, my identity. For a long time, “nurse” was how I introduced myself. It explained me, made sense to people, and carried weight around who I was as a person. When I left, I expected relief, and though I did feel it, I also felt something I hadn’t prepared for….the discomfort of no longer knowing how to answer the simple question, “So what do you do?”
People don’t always understand walking away from something stable and respectable, something that looks successful on paper. Even now, two years later, some still don’t understand. Sometimes, I don’t even fully understand it.
And in the quiet of winter, without the garden to occupy my time or the job to define me, those questions surface again. Who am I without the title, the productivity and the constant proof that I’m contributing something measurable? Winter has a way of forcing that inward work.
In the garden, nothing looks alive right now. But beneath the snow, roots are storing energy. Soil life slows, but it doesn’t disappear. Some seeds actually need the cold before they can germinate. Nature doesn’t panic in the off-season. It rests with purpose. I’m learning, very slowly, to trust that rhythm in my own life.
Some days, the winter blues are real. I miss the green, the sun, and the long evenings. I miss feeling visibly productive. But even that longing reminds me why I chose this slower path. I didn’t leave one exhausting pace just to recreate it in another form.
I created Growing Things Daily because I thought the title represented visible growth; seedlings stretching toward light and gardens thriving. Lately though, I’m beginning to understand that it also means something quieter and deeper. It means growing patience, clarity, and a steadier sense of who I am, even when I don’t have a neat title to offer.
The garden will wake up again as it always does. The snow will melt, the compost will soften, and the first baskets of greens and radishes will be harvested from the spring garden. And I can guarantee, I’ll check the gardens every morning like a child waiting for Christmas.
Maybe the off-season isn’t empty after all. Maybe it’s where identity shifts, where roots deepen, where we learn to be okay with growth that isn’t obvious or easily explained.
If you’re staring out at snow-covered beds and wondering when the real growing begins, maybe it already has. Just beneath the surface.
