Winter's doldrums and the Spring garden

While winter hasn't hit quite yet in the Mid-Atlantic, the temperatures sure took a nose dive this past weekend.  Frigid air, much like most of the US, has taken hold.  And, that has resulted in a hold on activities in the garden.  The winter rye is hanging in there and has actually grown a bit since the cold air descended on the region.
At this time of the year, I like to begin the preps for the early spring crops.  I do that by looking in the various catalogs and determining which plants I want to grow in the upcoming year.  As I usually grow way too many tomatoes and peppers, I have begun to rethink that.  I had 16 tomato plants and 16 Pepper plants last year.  That was way too many for our family and I ended up giving away most of them to neighbors, friends and family.  While I was in the process of doing that, it occurred to me that while it was nice to give my crops away, there certainly could be more efficient use of the space I had taken up with excess crop plantings.
There are an abundance of crops that could replace them and give us more yield for our family.  After all, that's the central point of a backyard garden.  I know I could grow plants like broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage to name a few.  I grew spaghetti squash one year and it was very good as a replacement for actual spaghetti.
I have to really look at it this time as there are other crops I know I have grown that we ate as a family. Timing is everything and it is fast approaching the period to begin starting my plants from seed.  Yes, it seems like only last month we were shutting down the garden and now we begin the whole process over again.    
I checked the progress of my small winter garden and it seems to still be moving along albeit very slowly.  From my research, that is to be expected.  It is supposed to get very cold this weekend so that will give further insight into just how successful I may be.  I am contemplating putting another layer of the heavy duty plastic over the structure to give it more insulation.  But, I have to weigh the benefit of that over the reduction of light getting to the plants.  The winter sun is much less intense and therefore you have to balance the amount of reduction of sunlight the extra layer will result in with the amount of coverage you are implementing.  I am also thinking of laying down a layer of compost around the plants as an alternative to the extra plastic.  I will have to research that in the next couple of days.
Well, that's all that is happening at this moment.  Until next time, Happy gardening everyone.