Winter Garden: BEFORE and AFTER

Planting a summer garden is an exercise in patience. You plunk the little guys in the ground in the spring when all other plants dwarf the new vegetable plants. Then you have to wait until the Fourth of July or the fourth of August for one little tomato. 

However, planting a winter garden is a pleasant surprise because you put the itty bitty broccoli and rinky dinky kale in the ground in November when everything else is dormant, dead or a cactus. 

BEFORE:

Then POOFF! One day in January you notice how the broccoli plants are huge and are topped with gorgeous broccoli florets worthy of a dish made by locavore Alice Waters! Vegetables grown in my own backyard? "Eating local" doesn't get any more local that that!

AFTER:

I just wonder if I can wait a few more days to harvest the broccoli for a special heart-healthy dinner for Valentine's Day...