The Winter Garden and This Year....

This  year I hope you decide to grow something for yourself....maybe some herbs outside the kitchen door or a five gallon bucket with some cherry tomatoes or a tray of salad greens or maybe you will decide to plant a fruit tree in the landscape....Each time I walk in the garden there is a new surprise...a new lesson....a new disappointment...yes disappointment...everything doesn't work...often I try something several times before I am successful with it....all those disappointments make the delight of success many times greater!!! 

Cabbages are one of those things.  I've got growing these babies down pat now!  I think.....or I hope!

This is the ornamental ones from the front garden.  Their bright dots of cheer stand out among all of the dead foliage.  We've had a freeze (very odd) already and the tropicals are dreary shades of grey and brown.  They'll have to stay there and protect the roots until spring when I prune away all the ugliness and the new bright foliage emerges.  Grey and wet, that's the best way to describe our winter.  Thank God for the garden.

Lots of citrus still on the trees.  We pick as we need it.  The fruit keeps much better on the trees.

All of my garlic is up and growing....

The kumquats didn't fare very well in the recent freeze...so much for the predicted mild winter :-)

Broccoli!

....this is an example of delight after many disappointments.  I have never successfully grown Brussels sprouts.  Here is my first semblance of success.  I cannot tell you how delighted I was to see this.

My first try at red cabbages got off to a disappointing start.  They were attacked viciously by something...well attacked hungrily by something is more accurate.  I believe the vicious or hungry attackers were my chickens!

...and here is Delta modeling my very finished first afghan.  It's more of a lap blanket size.  Very time consuming...and heavy...and warm.....

....REALLY!  You ought to grow something this year!