The painting is entitled "Winter Landscape with Skaters." It is by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, and was painted in 1565. The little dark rectangle in the right front, sitting in the snow, is a bird trap. Not a very nice thought. I'm glad we feed the little songbirds in winter now, rather than trapping and eating them.

We now have 150 different products (the vast majority of them seeds) listed on our website, so if you looked at it a month or so ago, please browse through it again: there are many more seeds there now - and a few still to be added.

I've added a Resources for Container Gardeners page and a Seed Starting FAQ to our website.

We're also working on an online PDF catalog that people can download and print or read locally (on their own computers) rather than across the Web.

Red Robin reminds me of the child's book "The Little Engine That Could". Like the little engine, Red Robin just keeps chugging along. Although this plant is growing in front of a large window, we have had essentially no sunshine this winter: none. I think in the last three months, we've had a total of about three hours of sun (until today, which is actually sunny: maybe the wicked spell is broken at last). We have two fluorescent lights hanging in the window also, to supplement the sun in a normal winter, and to replace it this winter. Nevertheless, even in these poor conditions, look at all the little tomatoes! Wow. Red Robin is truly "The LIttle Tomato That Could."

Bambino Hybrid Eggplant is also doing very well: the picture on the right shows two plants, in a pot 10" in diameter and 7" high. I probably shouldn't have put the two plants in one pot: they're crowded. But one plant would fit very nicely in this size pot. (Like an all-black dog, this plant seems almost impossible to photograph well - very annoying.)

For the adventurous seed-starters among us: you might like to consider "winter sowing" - sowing seeds outdoors, in containers, during the winter. I haven't tried it yet, but I've been saving suitable containers and I'll give it a try this week. The seeds I will sow outdoors (in the snow!) will be only seeds I can spare, as I'm not going to rely on something I haven't tried. I'll start my seeds indoors as usual, but I think it will be fun to experiment with winter sowing. Here is a website with lots of information on this: http://www.wintersown.org.

The brassicas are a huge component of vegetable gardens: many, many of our garden vegetables are in this family. These plants are also sometimes called "crucifers" or "coles". Included are:

• cabbage
• kale
• collards
• bok choy
• Chinese cabbage
• broccoli
• cauliflower
• broccoli raab
• mizuna
• many other Asian greens
• brussels sprouts
• turnips
• kohlrabi
• rutabaga
• radishes
• and probably others I can't remember at the moment

Most gardeners want to be able to grow at least some of these plants: their absence makes a huge hole in the vegetable garden as well as in the diet, as many of them are nutritional powerhouses. Many are also really delicious when home-grown.

The brassicas are, basically, cool season (spring and fall) plants although there are some that can be coaxed along through summer, certainly in areas with relatively cool summers. I can grow mizuna, other Asian greens, collards, bok choy, broccoli and others through the summers here in northern Pennsylvania in the mountains. But I don't think it could be done in, say, Georgia. The hot-summer places typically have longer springs and falls, though, so that affords sufficient time to grow these plants in those areas.

Brassicas are occasionally subject to some nasty soil-borne problems but as a container gardener, you avoid those completely. They are also subject to damage from flea beetles, but - at least in my experience - flea beetles stay close to the ground and do not jump high enough to pester container-grown plants. (I have had no flea beetle damage in container-grown plants: none, zero, never.) So right away, you're ahead of the game.

However, even container-grown brassicas are subject to the depredations of Evil Butterflies and Evil Moths! (Enter the villains of the piece....). The cabbage looper moth and the cabbage butterfly cause the same problem, and the solutions are the same too - a solution effective for one is also effective for the other - so I'm mostly just going to refer to them both as "cabbage butterflies."

You may see small white butterflies flitting innocently and delicately over your plants. Them's the bad guys! (You're less apt to see the moths as they do their evil business at night). The butterfly (or moth) lays eggs on the brassicas. The eggs hatch into larvae (worms or caterpillars). The larvae of both the butterfly and moth are green, by the way. These larvae eat the leaves of the plants. Left alone, they will completely destroy the plants. When the leaves are sufficiently riddled with holes, the plants collapses and dies.

This is one of the very few insect problems that container gardeners really need to solve. I have spoken with gardeners who claim that they never have this problem. I think they're very lucky indeed, or maybe their area has some unusual climatic or geographic feature that prevents the butterflies from living there. I can only say that I have experienced the Evil Butterfly Problem in Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania (places in which I've grown brassicas), and in containers as well as in the in-ground garden. The Encyclopedia of Natural Insect and Disease Control states that all 50 states in the USA have them (even Alaska!), so presumably Canada is troubled by them as well. I don't know whether they exist on other continents or not.

Fortunately, there are three fairly simple things that will solve the problem and none of them involve the use of broad-spectrum insecticides or heavy chemicals. I use all three solutions: which one I use depends on the circumstances. So I'll tell you about all three solutions and you can choose the solution(s) that seems suitable for your circumstances.

First, some brassicas can be planted in early enough spring that you'll harvest them before the butterflies appear. I can do this with several of the very fast growing Asian greens such as baby bok choy, choy sum, and hon tai tsai. I think you could do it with radishes too (I seldom bother to grow radishes, however, as I don't like them much.) You can also grow some plants late into fall and winter (kale, for one) after the butterflies have left for the season or gone into dormancy or died off (whatever butterflies do when the weather turns cold). So this is one solution.

Second, you can spray your plants with a solution containing Bacillus thuringiensis, usually abbreviated as Bt. Bt is a bacteria that infects and kills the larvae of butterflies and moths. It is harmless to other organisms (including humans). Bt can be sprayed on your plants up to the day you harvest them. You do need to spray the Bt at the correct point in the larvae's life cycle, so if you use this solution, read the label and follow the directions. It may need to be resprayed after rain, too.

Bt is available from GardensAlive, other online sources, and local garden centers. This is my solution of choice for decorative containers: containers that I want to look pretty. It's effective, it works, it's a fine solution to a nasty problem.

The third solution is what I usually use: that is, to cover the plants with either floating row cover or nylon netting. The openings in the nylon net are small enough to keep out the butterflies and moths, so in this case it works just as well as the row cover. Nylon net is also cheap and available in fabric stores and the fabric department of discount department stores. Row cover comes in fairly large quantities, perhaps more than you, as a container gardener, would want, so the nylon net would be a better choice for you in that case.

In the case of the brassicas, we don't want pollination: we don't need these plants to produce fruit as we eat the leaves (cabbage, etc.), flower buds (broccoli, etc.), stalks and leaves (bok choy, etc.) or roots (turnips, etc.). Since we don't need bees or other insects pollinating these plants, the netting or row covering can be left on throughout the entire life cycle of the plants, just being pulled back for harvesting. You can water right through either row covering or nylon net, and sunlight will enter through the coverings too, so that's not a problem.

You can drape floating row cover loosely directly over the plants, fastening it loosely down at the edges with soil or with ground staples (long u-shaped pieces of heavy wire). For containers, you can also clothespin it to the container's rim. The plants will push it up as they grow. I don't like to do this though, because I believe it restricts the plant's growth somewhat and encourages mold and fungus by being closely draped around the plant and soil, especially in a wet season.

So this is what I do for container plants that need to be covered: I make a cage that will fit just inside the container's rim. I use 1" mesh chicken wire to make these cages. The 1" mesh chicken wire is self-supporting (2" mesh chicken wire is too floppy for this purpose). I make the cage taller than the plant will eventually grow. For the sake of simplicity, I have standardized on using 3' chicken wire although in the case of some of the brassicas you could manage with 2' chicken wire. The chicken wire cages are reusable for successive seasons, and the netting or row cover is also reusable. If you have no chicken wire, but have some woven wire fencing left from a project, or tomato cage wire, they would also work here. Or you could construct a frame out of light pieces of wood. You just need something that will support the netting or row cover.

I put the cage inside the container when I transplant the little plants out, fastening the cage down to the soil with ground staples. I then cover the cage (right away!) with nylon net or floating row cover. I fasten the net or row cover to the soil in the container with ground staples at the bottom, or I use clothes pins (UK: clothes pegs) to fasten the net to the container rim. I fasten the net to the cage's top with clothes pins. Voila! The Evil Butterflies can flutter all around the container, but they're not going to get in to lay their eggs on my plants. Villains foiled, problem solved!

So there you have it: three different ways to solve this problem: all are very effective. You may want to use all three (as I do), choosing which is best on a case-by-case basis.

The average item of food consumed in the USA travels 1300 miles from farm to table. (Source : FoodRoutes.org). That food doesn't improve while it's in transit, which takes an average of 7-14 days (!). To the contrary, throughout its transit time, the food's nutritional value, taste, and texture are suffering. Also, as FoodRoutes.org points out: "Most fruit and vegetable varieties sold in supermarkets are chosen for their ability to withstand industrial harvesting equipment and extended travel, not taste. This results in little variety in the plants grown."

So - in the case of fresh vegetables and fruit - varieties that are not particularly tasty to begin with are then subjected to the rigors of 7-14 days of transit time, and goodness knows how many times they are handled (mechanically or by humans), before arriving on your kitchen counter. No wonder they usually aren't particularly enjoyable.

By contrast, let's say it's a hot sunny August afternoon. You walk to the container garden on your front porch, and pick tomatoes, basil, a pepper, and two zucchini. There are too many tomatoes and too much basil for you to use, so you decide to give some of the tomatoes and basil to your neighbor. And of course, you also give the neighbor one of the zucchinis: everyone who grows zucchini has an over-abundance.

A simple action, isn’t it? But what's really happening here? And, maybe more to the point, what is not happening here?

What's not happening: the tomatoes and other produce have not needed to be transported in refrigerated trucks or trains from California, Florida, Washington State (or even from another country). That equals an appreciable energy savings. The tomatoes and other produce have not needed packaging: another energy savings (and we could trace this back even further: the packaging had to be transported from where it was manufactured to where the food was packaged, etc., etc.). And maybe your neighbor had been planning to drive to town to buy tomatoes - now she doesn't have to. Yet another energy savings. (I'm sorry this sounds so USA-centric. The same points apply to other developed countries as well, of course. Only the details differ.)

All these energy savings (even though they are small ones) are also saving the earth from (an admittedly small portion of) additional pollution. Burning ancient sunshine (which is what we are doing when we burn oil, coal, or natural gas) not only depletes the earth's fast-diminishing store of ancient sunshine, it also releases pollutants into the atmosphere. The packaging required by the produce shipped from afar undoubtedly produces yet other pollutants in its manufacturing process. And the chain reaction reaches back further....

So - in actual fact - by growing even a small portion of your own food - you have become part of the solution rather than part of the problem. You are looking after the environment rather than tearing it down, even if only to a small extent.

OK, that's what is not happening. But what is happening?

You've enriched your life by growing fresh and tasty vegetables. You've learned a skill or refreshed a skill you learned earlier. Maybe tasting your homegrown tomatoes and fresh basil will inspire your neighbor to start gardening next year. And it will certainly add to the sense of community in your neighborhood if you share your garden's produce. You've added to the nutritional value of your family's diet, too, and that of your neighbors. Your container garden also provides foods for beneficial insects and possibly hummingbirds and brightens your neighborhood's appearance.

"But it's such a small thing!" you say. Yes, it is. It is a very small thing. What one person does usually is a very small thing. But if many people each do a very small thing....

A poem entitled "Little Things", written by Julia Carney (an otherwise almost totally unknown poet) in 1845, reads in part:

Little drops of water,
Little grains of sand,
Made the mighty ocean
And the pleasant land.

You may also want to consider eating local food as much as possible. "Eat local food, and change the world!" Community self-reliance is important: and sadly absent for the most part, at least in the USA. Maybe there's a farmer’s market in your area or a CSA that you can join. Maybe you can encourage your supermarkets to buy local produce. Maybe there are one or more farmstands, or you can locate a farmer who sells free-range eggs.

Even to this small degree, I like to feel that I am part of the solution rather than part of the problem. This is one aspect of gardening that is very meaningful to me.

If you want to explore the subject in (much!) more depth, I can recommend a book that I've recently read entitled "Eat Here: Reclaiming Homegrown Pleasures in a Global Supermarket," by Brian Halwell. Very informative, and easy to read.

Here are some resources that may help you find local food:

LocalHarvest.org

FoodRoutes.org

Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) Farms By State

Farmers Markets Listed By State

I've seen a number of really fancy, high-falutin' bread pudding recipes recently. But the one I like best is simple, homey, and just plain good. It's also cheaper than dirt (well, almost) and a cinch to make. It's fairly decent nutritionally: as desserts go, that is.

I use white bread for this. Using about 1/3 whole grain bread is OK, but I don't like it with a higher proportion of whole grain bread than that. (In fact, this is one of only two uses I have for white bread: the other is French toast.) We save heels of French or Italian bread in the freezer for this, or rolls that went stale.

Bread Pudding

• 2 eggs -- slightly beaten
• 2 1/4 cups milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 2 cups bread cubes (or just tear the bread up with your hands - the pieces can be fairly large)
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup raisins

This is good served either warm or cold. It's lovely with heavy cream poured over it (naturally!) or with whipped cream. I sometimes pour milk over it and pretend that it's heavy cream: it's good that way too.

And that's it until next month. Some people in warm climates have no doubt already started their seeds and the rest of us can just wait with whatever patience we can muster. In the meantime, I hope your winter is enjoyable - and that you get more sunshine than we have so far this winter!

Regards,
Pat