The saddest thing, depending on what kind of growing season you’ve had, for a home farmer is closing things up for the winter. You will never be overwhelmed by more bittersweet feelings than those that wash over you when you’re mulching your well-used beds with blankets of straw and bidding adieu to your faithful minions, the earthworms, in the bitter chill and sweet light of late Fall days.

Days before depression really sets in, though, seed catalogs begin to arrive in the mail, letting you know that there really has got to be a morning — or a spring — after. More exciting for me than any holiday cards (even those with super-cute kids or pets), new year catalogs get me positively giddy. Like mothers who forget the pain of childbirth as they procreate once again, I cannot recall any of the pain and heartache of last season’s efforts.

Drunk with optimism (and, let’s face it, a martini — or two), I sit here again with catalogs stacked high, teeming with Post-It tabs, and dreaming of what we will sow very, very soon.

Cabbage for sauerkraut (enough to share with all in 2012!), tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes, and more greens. Ingredients for perfumed ales and stouts. Lettuce as far as the eye can see. If you want us to grow something for you — or grow something so we can put it up for you, speak your peace.