Our garden is still producing cool season crops. Today, I went out to see what I could find, and discovered many lovely vegetables ready for harvesting and enjoying. Come with me as I poke around in the garden at the end of December in Garden Zone 8b. Don't mind the mess...the garden is overgrown right now, mainly because it's hard for me to keep up with it in the late summer when everything is growing like crazy. At that time, it's too hot outside for me to weed and trim it all. Plus, the ground gets rather hard during the summer, so digging up weeds is a lot more work than if I were to simply wait until the rainy season starts again. I do my weeding when the ground is soft. I've been working on weeding small sections at a time, now that the soil is much softer from all the rain we've had. As I work, I put down some type of mulch to protect the soil. This also helps me see where I've already weeded versus what still needs to be done. Above, notice the garlic th...