This morning it was -14F/-25C and it's made it up to a balmy -4F/-20C in the middle of the afternoon.  After a certain point, it's hard to compare one cold temp with another.  It's just cold.  I don't mind winter or cold but I'm really looking forward to being able to get out in the garden.  The January mail usually brings a smattering of winter clothing sale catalogs, various tax related papers and the cheerfully colored garden seed catalogs.  We have a very small veggie garden in our suburban backyard.  Last year we had a great year.  The kid and I were learning about weighing things so we tracked how much produce the garden yielded.  We're just geeky like that.

5 tomato plants - 370 tomatoes
12 bush bean plants - 2.2 kg
1 cucumber plant - 3.9 kg
2 pepper plants - 6 peppers
1 pea plant - 10g (this is the second bad season for peas so no more of that)

We also had a good season for lettuce.  We planted strawberries and maybe we'll get some of those this year.  There is nothing like fresh veggies right off the plants and onto the table.  We don't do organic gardening but we don't spray for bugs either.  So far we've been pretty lucky.  The tomato horn worms haven't found us yet.

Looking at the garden this year, I'm thinking lettuce, spinach, cucumbers, green beans, peppers and tomatoes (maybe some heirloom varieties).  I've never tried to grow melons before so maybe we'll try cantalope.  We know that pumpkins will grow because the year we did that, they took over most of the back patio, climbing down a rock wall to get there.