Here is where the year starts: from the back step, about a foot of snow on the ground. That's the garden in the middle. You'll have to trust me. The landscape timbers along the edge are just poking through, the picnic table has a snow cushion on it, and Jimmie's red shed is over on the left. Behind the fence are the neighbor's garage and the big silver maple, which shades the back row from about four o'clock on, so that's where the lettuce goes.

It came out a little blue. It was a little blue out.

What a gardener does in January: sits at the kitchen table with the seed catalogs, a pencil and a pot of coffee and orders too much. This year I finally ordered Brandywine tomatoes, after reading about them for about ten years. More on those later.