Vegetables in the Orchard?

 I am starting a new garden for the first time since I was a little kid. I'm excited but also nervous that things might not go well. Since I live in the Southeast and it's now Fall, I am just starting what we call "cool weather veggies:" romaine and red leaf lettuces, Italian spinach, red and Napa cabbages, beets, a few varieties of carrots, green peas, kale, snow ball, green, and purple cauliflower, broccoli, brussel sprouts—and I'm even attempting artichoke for a late 2011 Spring harvest. I've planted "cool weather flowers" as well: nasturtiums, along with some bush variety flowering sweet peas. I already love fruit gardening and have Red Delicious Apple, Santa Rosa Plum, Asian Persimmon, and Brown Turkey Fig trees, and I have three varieties of blueberry bushes (the Rabbit Eye variety is my favorite), and blackberry and grape vines. The blueberry haul this year was so overwhelming that I had to give about half of them away. I wish I had just frozen them now, but I enjoyed sharing my bounty with others. I've had pretty good luck with the fruit husbandry, so I hope the same will extend to the vegetables.

 I've decided to document my winter garden on my blog —a Waldenesque adventure of my own. I do all this in the hope that my kids (13 and 10) will open their minds a little to the joys of green eating if they see vegetables grown in their own yard—or at least be more willing to try some new things. Before I had children, I was once a vegetarian, then vegan, then vegetarian, and now a "pescetarian," but society has turned my kids into chicken wing-chicken nugget-mac n' cheese addicts, and I'll admit I've been an enabler in an attempt to get anything into my persnickety kids' tummies.

Thus, expect to read about my garden successes and woes. I've already had to concoct a organic vegetable spray of cayenne pepper, rosemary oil, cloves, and peppermint soap to keep the pesky aphids off my romaine! I plan to take photographs of my maiden gardening journey over the next few months, too. So let's go play in the dirt! (Above photo: started-romaine in seed pots)