Summer Yummin'

We have had a ridiculous amount of rain lately- the yard is sludge, but at least it helps keep those awful temperatures at bay.

The best part of summer, in my humble opinion, is the bounty from the vegetable garden!  Unfortunately we had to go with the container garden this year and so far I am not terribly impressed.  Our first two tomatoes were tiny and split open- the chickens enjoyed the treat, but BOO that we didn't get to use them ourselves!  One tomato plant is doing pretty well, it has a ton of blooms and the few green tomatoes on it's branches are already larger than the first two from the other plant.  Now if I can just keep it from going bad because of all the water!

Our green pepper plant is thriving in it's pot.  We even have three tiny peppers (and a ton of blooms), which I find amazing.  Last year it was late August before we had green peppers, even though we planted earlier than we did this year.

One jalapeno is doing well, we're just waiting on it's single pepper to be ready to pick, but I have high hopes for a large yield later in the summer.

Our Hot Banana Pepper is by far the success story so far.  We've had several peppers that have found their way to our dinner table and WOW are they hot.  They have the power to make you sweat and light your mouth on fire- which is perfect for those light summer dinners of sandwiches and salads.

I miss our large garden, complete with corn, onions, cucumbers and other money-saving Summer must-haves, but I've still got high hopes for the plants we have.  Every little bit helps and it just isn't summer around here without a harvest from the garden!

-Kristen