Some people spend their winters skiing or baking bread. I spend mine hunched over a notebook, sketching rectangles labeled “beans” and “lettuce,” surrounded by seed catalogs and the faint smell of potting soil I’ve dragged in from the garage.

Every fall I swear I’m going to “go easy” on the bulb orders.
And then I blink, and there’s a box the size of a small appliance sitting on my porch full of daffodils, tulips, alliums, and at least four varieties of bulbs I forgot I even added to the cart.

Every fall, the same debate hits the gardening world:
Should you clean everything up neatly for winter… or just throw your hands up, pour some hot cider, and let nature handle it?