Thus Far in Vegetables.

I think it's time for a mid-term status report on the garden. I probably have a tendency to only report the disappointments, but there have been successes too, and not just of the "learning experience" variety.

The one little Thai chili plant is prolific. It's slowing down now, but I've already picked about 30 red chilies . They're tiny but potent. It only takes one of them to make a whole batch of red curry fiery hot, so I've been freezing most of them.

I picked two big poblanos yesterday. They were just starting to turn red. There's one more poblano coming along. That's three chilies from two plants, not a great record.

The two jalapeño plants are covered with dozens of peppers. They all appeared at about the same time, and they're ripe enough to pick but I want to see if they'll turn red. I used one last week in some salsa I made with tomatoes a friend brought over from her garden, and it was very hot for a jalapeño. Since there will be so many at once, we'll probably give a few away, and roast and freeze a bunch of them.

The bell peppers are nearly a bust. On six plants, there are only two peppers. The larger one is being eaten by worms. The smaller one seems okay, just small.

I picked two perfect cucumbers last week and made a cucumber salad. They were sweet and delicious. There are dozens more coming along on the vines which are creeping everywhere.

No fruit yet on the watermelon vines, but the plants are healthy and pretty.

The two peanut plants that survived are growing slowly and blossoming every once in a while, but no peanuts yet.

The green bean vines continue to produce a handful of pods every day. They're Blue Lake beans, and we've used them in salads mostly since the quantity is so small and it's nice to use them when they're very fresh. They're tender and very tasty.

One tomato plant has several green fruit and one that's almost all pink. I can't remember what kind of tomatoes they are, some heirloom variety. They look pretty good, but they're full of punctures from the leafrooted bugs, so I don't know how they'll taste. The other plant is full of little green pear-shaped fruit that, for some reason, don't tempt the bugs. I think it's a Roma.

The zinnias have slowed down, but the sunflowers are crazy. They're not the ones with huge flying saucer flowers; they're slightly smaller, in various shades of brown and yellow and white, with several blooms per plant.