When it comes to planning and managing your garden, you need to take seasonal light levels into account. Plants not only need sunlight for photosynthesis, but they also need the heat generated by the sun’s rays. While gardeners tend to think in terms of Spring, Summer, and Autumn, it is worthwhile to take sunlight levels into account too. For this reason, I plan my garden around the Persephone Period.
As I write this, the first day of Autumn occurred yesterday in the Northern Hemisphere and the first day of Spring occurred in the Southern Hemisphere. The autumnal and vernal equinoxes (scientifically called Astronomical Fall and Astronomical Spring) are marked by equal hours of day and night. From here on out, the days will continue to get shorter in the northern hemisphere and longer in the southern hemisphere.
Where I live, the heat of the Summer hasn’t yet dissipated, but Pumpkin Spice Lattes and Halloween decor abounds. It still doesn’t feel like autumn to me. The deciduous trees where I live haven’t even started turning colors and stubbornly maintain their Summer greenery. My garden is even continuing to give me late season produce. So how can it be Autumn?! The Persephone Period gives gardeners a framework to managing the intricacies of their early spring and late Autumn gardens.
What is the Persephone Period and Why is it Important?
The term “Persephone Days” was first coined by author and gardener Eliot Coleman in his book The Winter Harvest Handbook & Year-Round Vegetable Production (affiliate link). He gave it this name in reference to Greek mythology.
Persephone, daughter of the goddess of the harvest Demeter, spends winter with her husband Hades, god of the underworld. During this time, Demeter allows no crops to grow. For this reason, Persephone symbolizes the seasons. As mythological stories go, it’s a favorite of mine. As gardening goes, it’s highly useful.
Eliot Coleman calls his Persephone Days as days when the sunlight at your latitude falls below 10 hours a day, from sunrise to sunset.
How Do You Find Your Persephone Period?
The Persephone period changes depending on the latitude where you live. In the Northern Hemisphere, southern latitudes have later (or even no) Persephone days while northern latitudes have to contend with far less light. Of course, this is reversed for the Southern Hemisphere.
In the continental United States, the northernmost zip code (Angle Inlet, MN) starts its Persephone period as early as October 30th and doesn’t end it until February 12th. Meanwhile, the southernmost zip code of continental US (Key West, FL) never goes into the Persephone period. Their hours of sunlight drop to 10 hours 36 minutes on December 22nd. At which point the days begin to lengthen again.
Where I live, November 18th through January 25th is my Persephone period, and I plan my gardening accordingly. https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/ is an excellent resource to find the Persephone Period for your local area. Look for the days where the day length crosses the 10 hours per day mark. This tells you when your Persephone period begins and ends.
Winter Garden Preparation to do in Autumn
The Autumnal Equinox is a good time to think about the upcoming Persephone Period because it gives you time to prepare for the Winter.
Autumn Garden Produce
Planting cool weather crops in August and early September can extend your growing season. Plants that like cooler weather include leaf vegetables like Kale and Collards, but also root vegetables like Carrots and Beets.
Deadheading and Fall Foliage Removal
You should cut back some plants to allow them to sleep comfortably in winter dormancy. But some plants are better left where they are throughout the winter season. Coneflowers like Echinacea and Black Eyed Susans provide seeds for birds that overwinter in your area. This gives them food during a time when other food may be scarce. Other plants, like Coleuses, provide over-winter shelter to beneficial bugs like bees and ladybugs.
If you don’t need to remove the autumn foliage from your outdoor beds, consider leaving them where they are to maintain a natural habitat throughout the winter season.
Plant Spring Bulbs
Autumn is the perfect time to plant spring flower bulbs and other perennials in your garden. Some vegetables like garlic are best planted in the cooler, fall weather. If you have seeds that require cold stratification (a period of cold dormancy prior to germination), now is the time to plant or scatter them. As Penelope Lively mentions in her book Life in the Garden (Affiliate Link), “We garden for tomorrow, and thereafter. We garden in expectation, and that is why it is so invigorating.”. Autumn is the perfect time to plant the seeds (and bulbs) for Spring.
Spring Preparation to do in Winter
The end of the Persephone Period marks the beginning of spring. Occurring before the Spring equinox, the end of the Persephone Period is a good time to start your seedlings indoors and prepare your garden beds for the upcoming gardening season. The 10+ hours of sunlight a day allow seedlings to germinate without becoming overly leggy. The increasingly warm days allow you to harden off those seedlings before ultimately transplanting them into your garden.
Many of the tasks done in early Autumn are also good to do in early Spring. Repeat or split up tasks between the beginning and end of the Persephone Period. If you left your Autumn foliage alone to allow the overwintering of beneficial garden creatures, late Winter is time to get to work. After the Persephone Period is over it’s time to cut that foliage back and prepare your garden beds for Spring.
Make the Most of Your Persephone Days
Now that you know your Persephone Period, you can prepare your garden appropriately. Plan for the upcoming period of dormancy in Winter, or the growing sunlight and warmer weather of Spring. Persephone’s descent and re-emergence from the underworld can help gardeners to match the cyclical cadences that make our gardens the most productive.
(Top Featured Image, like all images on this blog, is my own: Dawn and Ice on the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, MN, USA on the morning of February 8, 2006)
6 responses to “Persephone Period and What It Means For Your Garden”
[…] was the beginning of our Persephone Period here in Northern Virginia. The daylight hours have dropped to below 10 hours per day and will stay […]
[…] Temperature may be the number one factor that kills plants in winter, but light levels slow growth too. Less light means less warmth in the soil. You can affect this by adding a grow lamp in the darker winter months of the Persephone Period. The Persephone Period is the days of the year where hours of daylight drop below 10 hours per day at your particular latitude. I go over the Persephone Period in depth in the article Persephone Period and What It Means For Your Garden. […]
[…] many plants slow or even stop their growth for the season. This winter timeframe is known as the Persephone Period, and it’s different for every gardener depending on their area’s latitude on the […]
[…] end of January is the end of the Persephone Period in my part of the world. That means that for the last 15 days my garden has been officially […]
[…] your kale leaves all winter long! Kale grows slower in the lower levels of light received after the Persephone Period is over. But winter kale tastes even better than the kale harvested during the late summer and […]
[…] When deciding on what to plant for an autumn garden, look out for the “days to maturity” on the backs of your seed packets. Take into account the average frost in your area and work backwards from that date. You may also want to consider your region’s Persephone days. That is, the days where the sunlight drops below 10 hours a day. [Learn more about the Persephone Period and how to calculate it for your area.] […]