My dad has grown a garden every year of my life. Starting in January he pages through seed catalogues and draws garden maps and diagrams. He likes to read the descriptions of the vegetables he orders out loud to us: heirloom tomatoes, Italian winter squash, and glossy zucchini rendered in rich, glowing prose. In the spring he digs up all the garden beds and begins planting. By June the garden is overflowing with green, and come August it’s a jungle of abundance. The last crops in the garden are often the tomatoes, the pumpkins, and the winter squash. When the first frost comes, all the greenery dies back. He cuts it all down and cleans up the beds. They sit empty over the winter, ready for planting in the spring.

Based on this cycle, I’d always viewed gardening as primarily a spring and summer activity with one growing season a…