Winter Gardening

I'm attempting a winter garden this year, planting broccoli, kale, beets, and chard. Only broccoli is a favoured vegetable in the kids' repertoire, so it will be interesting (Sheila says very diplomatically, eyebrows raised ever so slightly) to see how the kale and chard are received. I can usually tempt them with steamed and buttered beets, particularly if they are golden beets, but kale goes over better if I purée it in a smoothie. What I can't see won't poison me...that's FDPG's adage. Funny kid, that one. She'll drink a dark, green, sludgy liquid as long as it's sweet (Sheila's tip #694: frozen bananas add a serious amount of sweetness to a smoothie).

I didn't plant any cabbage or brussell sprouts because Richard and I don't like them very much. In fact, one of the things that sealed him as a deal for me was our mutual dislike of most brassicas. I know, I know, how very highbrow of me. I'm posh that way. My snobbery extends to all things edible.

I wonder how long this winter garden of mine will last. I may have to tent it with some plastic later, but for now the temperatures here are a rather balmy 14ºC. Well, balmy for this part of the world.

Oh, and all that weird white stuff around the plants? Why, it's my creative slug repellant. And by gosh, it works (fancy that).