One of my garden plots sustains frequent digging attacks--at least one a week--from raccoons (or possibly skunks). They come in the night and till up the soil so dramatically that all the poor seedlings don't have a chance. I have almost no turnips or beats growing, since, due to my attempts to rotate what I'm planting in each bed, I put all my root vegetables in the raccoons' favorite digging spot.
On the bright side, the critters seem to be pretty much focusing on that one plot, so I've managed to get some crops going in the other two. These include purple cabbage, which has been leafing out pretty nicely. I have never grown cabbage before, so I am not sure when the head of cabbage will start forming. Soonish, I hope.
Other crops doing well in the ground include spinach, mustard greens, broccoli, carrots and peas. As usual, my peas are reluctant to climb their poles, no matter how many I provide them. But, they're flowering nicely and starting to make pods, so I can't complain. Peas are so fun to grow because they're both easy and fast.
My container greens have been growing nicely, especially the chard and kale. I have two big wooden containers on the patio that are thriving.
Plus, I've got lots of small pots with mustard greens, spinach and arugula on the deck. I have had several sandwiches with arugula in the last couple of weeks, and I'm planning to make a very tasty, homegrown & home-laid spinach omelet in a week or so.
Tonight, we're having a meal from a great cookbook I received for Christmas from my aunt, uncle and cousins: Fresh from the Vegetarian Slow Cooker
. I've made three meals from it so far, and they've all been tasty. The lentil stew I'm currently cooking has "ribbons of kale" in it, which I picked from the garden this afternoon.
Tonight's dinner should be a healthy, delicious and cheap meal. Hopefully, it's the first of many from my winter garden. That is, if I can keep the raccoons away.
Wow! It looks great. We are having trouble with our fava beans (broad beens) - no pods. It may have been bad timing or a dirth of bees. I just posted about it today. Your peas look great. I wish we would have planted some. Maybe I'll put them in the barrels with our carrots.
I doubt raccoons are the ones digging in the garden; skunks are more likely culprits. What has worked pretty well for me against deer, possums, raccoons, birds, etc. is netting. Go to Lowe's and get a roll of netting (sort of like chicken wire, only net), and just lay it over the garden bed. You can anchor it with rocks if your critters are especially enterprising. If you want to be more elaborate, put some posts in around the bed and lay the net over that. We have raised beds and have nails around the base onto which we can hook the netting to keep it down. For tomatoes, we erect a structure sort of like a poster bed, then drape net all over it, hanging to the ground. It keeps the birds from pecking almost-ripe tomatoes and ruining them (and my goodwill toward birds).