Finding hope in the deep dark of winter

With cold nights that fall fast and weeks of little sun, winter challenges us with her relentlessness. By February, many of us sigh a breath of relief as the days slowly begin to lighten again. What does a farmer do in the deep dark of winter? For this urban farmer, I spent one winter afternoon shelling beans with Kristen, one of our dedicated volunteers. We spent a cozy afternoon sipping hot drinks, catching up and breaking up dried pods. It’s a pleasant activity working with your hands while reflecting on the end of the busy farm season. The autumn of 2025 wrapped up with a flurry of workshops on nutrition, bee houses, seed-saving and cold stratification. Our lively Harvest Open House during Urban Agriculture Week featured music, scavenger hunts and a food forest workshop led by Dr. Sylvia Keesmaat. At Common Table Farm, we’re proud to be a place where city folks encounter soil and plants, deepening their connections to the ecosystems that sustain us.

When I first began farming, I didn’t know much at all. I was eager to learn everything, from starting seedlings to saving seed. Shelling dry beans is one of the last steps of seed-saving. The first step involves growing the crop and allowing the plant to complete its whole life cycle. In the case of beans, that means allowing the legume to grow to maturity, flower and set its seed. Sometimes we designate a few plants for this purpose. Other times we simply collect the overly mature pods that were missed during harvesting and have become too fibrous for eating as fresh beans. We let the pods dry on the plant, then pick them and dry them further inside. A dehumidifier and a dry space are helpful at this stage – otherwise you may contend with mold issues.

Saving our own seed is a practical choice – it saves us some money from having to purchase seeds annually. It also means that the plants we grow from our own seed are becoming locally adapted to the conditions that we encounter on our farm. It’s a unique opportunity to engage youth with the life skills involved in this ancient farming practice. Because the school year doesn’t line up with the growing season, the farm is put to bed for a good number of months when students are in class. But we can still host students and show them the kinds of plants that we save seed from. Aside from beans, we collect from okra, bitter melon, lettuce, tomato, eggplant, pepper and various flowers. Youth are introduced to the incredible diversity of seeds from different crops and varieties, and learn how to collect and store them.

Seed-saving also connects our farm to the wider world of food sovereignty. The ability of growers and communities to maintain traditional foods and sustain their own food production is a key aspect of food sovereignty. Seeds are sacred in many cultures. For Indigenous and Black communities, seeds have been at the heart of histories of resistance to colonization and enslavement. Seeds continue to be at the forefront of food sovereignty battles, as small-scale farmers fight injustices imposed by multinational corporations. In a sea of bad news, it’s an intentional choice to celebrate good news when it comes. This past November, 15 Kenyan smallholder farmers won a legal battle challenging the government’s Seed and Plant Varieties Act. The law had criminalized the saving and exchanging of unregistered seeds, penalizing small-scale farmers while providing proprietary rights to commercial plant breeders. Let’s all cheer for these perservering farmers! They stood up for their rights to share indigenous seeds, preserving a practice that farmers have engaged in for countless generations. These farmers spoke the truth that the value of seeds runs much deeper than money.

A final step to saving bean seed: pop those shelled beans into the freezer. I’ve learned from experience that if you just store the beans after shelling, the notorious bean weevil may hatch and strike, eating up your saved beans and causing quite a bit of sadness! Freezing seems to kill off any potential eggs. After about a week in the freezer, remove the beans to dry fully again. Then store them in a paper envelope in a cool, dry place or airtight container until planting time.

Speaking of planting time: it will be quite busy again, soon enough. I’ll appreciate a few more weeks at a slower pace – cracking open the brittle pods, feeling the smooth roundness of the beans as they fall out (or sometimes fly out!), discarding the detritus of last year to be composted, and holding the promise of the coming season in my palms. On cold February afternoons, this is where I find hope in the deep dark beauty of winter.

To find out more about the urban farm or to support its work, contact Melodie Ng at [email protected].