Peppers!  I have tried to grow peppers a few times through the years with pretty abysmal results.  This year on a whim I bought plants at Simmon's farm -- a 3 pack of bell peppers and a 3 pack of cubanelles.  I had a woman with a very thick accent stop me and offer some advice on picking my pepper plants, which caused me to swap them out for other plants.  Well, the woman was right.

Granted, only 1 of the 3 bell peppers is actually bell peppers, the other 2 are also cubanelles, but the plants are going crazy.  I pulled 4 good sized cubanelles last night to stuff and they turned out amazing.  There are prb another 7 cubanelle peppers and 5-6 bell peppers out there getting to size.  One of the cubanelles also toppled over weeks ago (before it was growing fruit), breaking the top, which set it back -- I'm hoping it will give me fruit in a few weeks.

I continue to harvest lettuce.  I should have started more of it a few weeks ago to take us into the fall, but I'm a slacker.  The basil plant I thought was done resurged and is giving me more fresh basil.  Most of the tomato plants are killing it (except the roma).  Even the dwindled $1 discount roma and scallions are starting to grow nicely and may provide a nice later crop.  The potato tops are large, dark green, and strong.  The mint is flowering, I need to pull the leaves and dry them (I know, I know, I'm late on that).  The carrots never seemed to root down, but they have lovely tops.  Same with the turnips, but I am finally seeing a few little bumps at the top of the soil that make me think I might have something there.  (35 days from germination to fruit?  yeah more like 70.)

Long story short, not bad for a bunch of buckets in the back yard.  Next year I may need to clear a spot in the flower bed above to do some zucchini or other large viney plant.

Also - we have a volunteer sunflower that took up shop with the lettuce.  She is in bloom and looking beautiful.