Home Grown Broccoli

I've harvested several heads of broccoli so far and it's fantastic! Why have I not grown this before? I have not even gotten out to rip out my now dead tomato plants and still easily found room for 6 broccoli plants. Next year I'll plant twice that.

The main head grows up out of the middle and now that I've harvested several plants of their main crop, I'm told that I'll get smaller heads growing up off the side shoots, and in fact I see them starting already. I brought two heads up to my sister's for Christmas dinner. I love sharing home grown crops like that!

I also gave several folks small jars of my homemade apple butter for presents. I love sharing stuff like that and managed to set aside a few jars for gifts before the girls could eat it all up! Toast and apple butter has become a favorite snack. I've still got one tree producing apples so I might even try to make another batch. These winter apples are the best apples I grow. I have no idea what variety they are since someone planted these trees long before I lived here. They are crisp and tart, but not as tart as a Pippin. Pleasantly tart eating apples, but great for cooking as well.

Slack Time

This is the first year I've grown vegetables in the fall/winter, other than garlic. I just don't think about getting out into the vegetable garden this time of year. I have to remind myself to walk out there and check on the broccoli and such. What a fun surprise to walk back into the kitchen with a gorgeous head of broccoli for dinner!

The cold spell we had definitely put the kabosh on my tomatoes so I need to get out there now and take the poor bedraggled things out of the beds and put them in the compost piles.