The White Quilts are Silverwick's agricultural fields—the carefully cultivated lands southeast of town where food is grown, harvests are won or lost, and survival is measured in bushels and baskets. The name comes from their winter appearance: rectangular plots laid out in geometric patterns, each covered in white snow like patches on a massive quilt.
These fields are Silverwick's lifeline. Without them, the town would depend entirely on hunting, foraging, and trade—insufficient to feed the population through eight-month winters.
The fields occupy relatively flat land with good drainage, proximity to the river for water access, and southern exposure to maximize sunlight. The soil has been worked for centuries—amended, enriched, carefully managed.
During growing seasons, the White Quilts become Silverwick's most heavily guarded location. The Winterguard maintains constant presence. The future is being grown here.
The Growing Seasons
The White Quilts operate year-round with three months of forced dormancy:
December, January, February - Dormant Season: Too cold even inside the Frost-Moss greenhouses. The fields lie frozen and empty. Greenhouses are collapsed, cleaned, and stored. Workers rest, repair equipment, plan next season. This is Silverwick's deepest winter—when stored food must sustain everyone.
March through November - Growing Season: Nine months of active cultivation, split between two methods:
Outside Growing - The Brief Window
Timing: Late spring through early autumn—roughly 6-8 weeks during the warmest part of year when snow melts, temperatures rise slightly, and crops can be grown directly in open soil.
What Grows Outside:
Leafy Greens: Frost Kale, Winter Spinach, hardy lettuce—fast-growing crops that mature quickly
Tender Vegetables: Tomatoes (small, hardy varieties), peppers (rarely, only warmest years), summer squash—crops needing direct sun
Quick-Maturing Crops: Radishes, spring onions, herbs—anything that can germinate, grow, and be harvested within the narrow window
The Challenge: The window is unpredictable. Some years, eight weeks, other years barely six. An unexpected late freeze can kill everything overnight. An early autumn frost can destroy crops days from harvest.
Workers watch weather obsessively. At the first sign of frost, everyone mobilizes—harvesting everything immediately, even if not fully mature.
The Atmosphere: These weeks are frantic, joyful, exhausting. Fresh greens appear in markets—the first fresh vegetables after months of preserved food. The smell changes—fresh earth, growing plants, the green scent of photosynthesis.
But everyone knows: this won't last. Winter returns.
Greenhouse Growing - The Extended Season
Timing: March through November—nine months of growing hardy crops inside Frost-Moss canvas greenhouses.
The Frost-Moss Canvas Greenhouses:
The greenhouses are Silverwick's most sophisticated agricultural technology—hoop structures covered with heavy canvas woven through with living Frost-Moss strands.
Construction: Metal or sturdy wood hoops arch over rectangular plots, creating tunnel-like structures 6-8 feet high at the center. The Frost-Moss-woven canvas stretches over these hoops, secured with ties and weighted edges.
The canvas itself is remarkable—heavy fabric with Frost-Moss strands incorporated during weaving. The moss creates luminous vein patterns throughout, glowing blue-white even during the day. At night, the greenhouses glow like giant lanterns laid across the fields.
How They Work:
Extended Light: The Frost-Moss provides supplemental illumination before dawn and after dusk, extending effective "daylight" hours. Crops get perhaps 2-4 additional hours of usable light daily.
Minor Warmth: The Frost-Moss doesn't generate heat exactly, but the constant glow makes the interior 2-5 degrees warmer than outside. Enough to prevent frost damage on borderline nights, enough to keep hardy crops alive when outside temperatures would kill them.
Weather Protection: The canvas blocks wind, prevents snow accumulation on plants, and protects from hail. The canvas is water-resistant but breathable, preventing freezing rain while allowing air circulation.
Visual Impact: By day, rows of arched greenhouses march across the fields like pale ribs. By night, they glow blue-white—dozens of luminous tunnels creating an ethereal landscape. Workers moving through them at night appear as shadows in dreamlike light.
Maintenance: Canvas must be inspected for tears and repaired immediately. Frost-Moss needs misting to stay luminous. Hoops must be adjusted. Snow must be cleared from surfaces.
What Grows in Greenhouses:
Root Vegetables: Ice Potatoes, Frost Turnips, Snow Parsnips, Winter Carrots, Frost Beets—staple crops that store well and provide winter calories.
Grains: Winter Rye, Snow Barley, Frost Oats—planted in early spring, growing through summer, harvested in autumn.
Hardy Legumes: Ice Peas and Frost Beans—difficult, finicky, but precious protein sources.
Alliums: Winter Garlic and Storage Onions—planted in autumn, overwintering inside greenhouses, harvested the following spring.
The Cost:
Frost-Moss canvas greenhouses are enormously expensive. The canvas alone costs a significant coin. Having it woven with living Frost-Moss requires specialist weavers. A single greenhouse (covering perhaps 20x100 feet) might cost what a laborer earns in two years.
Community Ownership: Most greenhouses are owned jointly by the Guild of Frost Authority and Craft Guild. Families are assigned plots based on family size and need, contribution to the community, and lottery.
Getting a greenhouse plot is competitive. Those with plots guard them jealously. Losing your assignment means relying on outside growing (brief, risky) or purchasing food at market prices (expensive).
Storage When Dormant: In late November, as December's deep cold approaches, greenhouses are carefully dismantled. The Frost-Moss canvas is cleaned, inspected, carefully rolled, and transported to the Frost-Locked District's cold storage. The moss stays alive in the cold. Hoops are bundled, secured, and stored. Everything is cataloged and prepared for reassembly in March.
The Labor
Working the White Quilts is communal, exhausting, and essential.
Planting Season (March): The entire town mobilizes. Greenhouses are reassembled. Soil is prepared. Planting happens quickly—every day of delay reduces the growing season.
Families with assigned plots do their own planting, but neighbors help. Larger communal plots are planted collectively.
Growing Season (April-November): Constant maintenance. Weeding, watering (hauling from river or wells), monitoring for pests or disease, adjusting greenhouse ventilation, and repairing damage.
Children help—learning farming skills, contributing to family survival. The work is hard but social. Workers talk, share news, gossip flows freely.
Harvest Season (Late Summer-Autumn): The most intense labor. Crops must be harvested at optimal ripeness, processed quickly, and stored properly.
During main harvest (usually late August), the entire town participates. Schools close. Shops reduce hours. Everyone who can work heads to the fields.
The Winterguard maintains a heavy presence—protecting harvest from Frost-Walkers and preventing theft.
The Challenges
Unpredictable Weather: Even with greenhouses, Silverwick's growing season is uncertain. Unexpected cold snaps. Storms damage structures. Years when the outside growing window barely opens.
Pest and Disease: Enclosed greenhouses can concentrate pest and disease problems. A single diseased plant can quickly infect an entire greenhouse. Constant vigilance is required.
Resource Competition: Water during dry periods, fertilizer, tools, labor—everything is limited. Families compete while trying to maintain community cooperation.
Frost-Walker Threats: The fields are outside the walls. Workers are vulnerable. During planting and harvest, attacks increase. Every year, someone is injured or killed.
Storage Failures: Harvest is only half the challenge. Crops must be stored properly through winter. Root cellars can fail. Grain can rot or attract vermin.
Why It Matters
The White Quilts are where Silverwick's survival is most tangible, most visible, most honest.
Other systems are abstract—walls protect invisibly, administration governs behind closed doors. But the White Quilts show survival directly. Seeds go into the ground. Plants grow (or don't). Harvest succeeds (or fails). Food stores fill (or remain dangerously low). The margin between enough and starvation is visible in baskets of potatoes and bundles of grain.
The Frost-Moss greenhouses represent human ingenuity—taking the moss that lights homes and transforming it into agricultural technology. Using magic not for grand purposes but for practical survival.
And the labor—thousands of hours, hundreds of people, nine months of constant work—proves that Silverwick survives through collective effort. The community together can, barely, with constant effort and occasional luck.
The White Quilts are hope-made agricultural. Every seed planted is faith that spring will come, that crops will grow, that winter can be survived one more time.
Every harvest basket is proof that faith was justified. This time.