The summer solstice always has a point of bittersweetness for me, because it marks the day that the light starts to wane. I live on light. But it's easy to miss its gradual disappearance in midsummer. After the summer's gone, though, you can't deny the coming winter. I always look forward to the winter solstice because it is on that day paradoxically, the longest night of the year, the shortest day, when the stars are bright and the air is crips, that the light begins to return. The fact that each day there will be a little more light helps me through the rest of the long winter. It's all downhill from here. A good solstice bonfire helps too.

Here in Barcelona, winter isn't so stark, and there are already signs of the coming spring, thanks to those wildflower seeds that I collected in Montjuïc last May, among other things. This morning, there are many more silene dioica blooming, but I also have the first flower buds of some spindly as yet un-recognized plants. It's one of the fun parts of not labeling my collected seeds: I'm not quite sure what they will be. But they will be something. And a flower bud is proof of that.

I also have three little peppers struggling through December on a volunteer pepper plant that appeared at the end of September or perhaps even October. Who am I to say when peppers should grow?

What's in your pre winter-solstice garden? What are you most looking forward to with the Spring?