Time for a photo update!

First up here, we have some hot peppers.  These are the Anaheim Chiles, which I’ve heard conflicting reports on how hot they get.  I will say that I pulled one baby off the plant and there was very little heat whatsoever.  I’m hoping that they fire up a bit.  The plants have quite a few peppers on them, I’m just going to let them change colors a bit and see where they end up.  Very soon I’ll have tomatillos ready for making into green salsa, so hopefully I’ll have the hot peppers as well.

Next, these are some of the sweet peppers.  These ones will be yellow, and this year I planted mini peppers.  They’re called Sweet Stuffing Peppers and are tiny- no more than 2 inches across.  I’m tickled that the plants are loaded- I could probably pick some now to use as green peppers, but my kids are drooling at the thought of mini yellow peppers.

Remember a few weeks back I talked about my herbs and I mentioned that the basil was doing terrible?  check this out!  The basil likes the heat we’ve been having and has grown into some decent size plants!  I’m so excited about this- with all the tomatoes going on, I can’t wait to combine the two with some balsamic vinegar for a real salad.

Next, here are some eggplant!  These were an exciting find after our week away!  There are two eggplants growing on each plant, and I’m looking for exactly what I’m going to do with them.  The first one is going to be used in a curry, but after that… who knows.  These are the Ping Tung eggplants, and it looks like the Applegreen may not be too far behind.

My Chinese Long Beans have started producing… I am clearly doing something wrong.  All the photos I’ve seen of these beans show plants that are easily six feet tall.  Mine are maybe 18 inches tall, and the one plant has two little beans on it.  I’m certainly not going to be picking these yet, but to be honest… I’m almost wondering if there wasn’t a seed mix-up.  These so far look more like cowpeas than like long beans.  Time will tell I guess.

Then here are the Patty Pan Squash.  The plants themselves are doing remarkably well, and I can see that there will be lots of patty pans to come.  I found these little babies just starting to grow, which means that any day the invasion will begin.  Bring it on.

The Kale is still going strong, and I think that any day now I’ll do another harvest of the largest leaves.

Here is a close-up of the yellow pole beans- specifically Marvel of Venice.  These beans are doing remarkably well.  Before we left for our vacation, we had told the neighbors to help themselves if they started going crazy.  They did- they enjoyed a meal of green beans one night.  Except that they aren’t supposed to be green.  As the beans sit they’re turning yellow, so I’m waiting to harvest them, there are quite a few, if the plants continue at this rate, we’ll be putting plenty of beans in the freezer- something I really hadn’t anticipated.  Andy even had to extend my trellises an extra two feet- and the plants just keep going! These are definitely very vigorous.

This next picture is fun.  This is the volunteer patch-where we had the compost last year, and ultimately decided to get rid of it because we just don’t have the space for it.  So far we’ve found three tomato plants in here- what variety we have no clue, and this vining thing.  It doesn’t match either of the cucumbers we have growing- but looks very cucumberish.  It could be a pickle-bush, but time will tell.  We also had cantaloup last year, so there’s that possibility as well.  Andy found these a week ago when weed-wacking, do ultimately we decided to just let this part of the lawn go to see what we have here.

Overall, the garden is doing well.  Where I pulled out lettuce a few weeks back I planted bush beans.  My soil needs some vitamins put back into it, so bean plants seemed like the best option.  As beans and peas grow, they produce little nodules of nitrogen on their roots.  Read: Vitamins.  So when you pull out beans and peas, you should always leave the roots to fertilize the soil.  I figure if the bean plants produce we get bonus beans.  If they don’t produce, we still get some vital nutrients back into the soil.

If anything else comes out over the next while, I’ll be throwing in some turnips, more kale, and maybe some broccoli. It may be too late to get anything else to grow fully, but since last year it was mild right up to Thanksgiving, I figure there is a sporting chance.