Gypsy Pepper

Yes, we have some peppers this year! The gypsy peppers are turning from green to orange to red. We had this one last night, sliced into a taco salad. I made the salad with organic romaine lettuce (from the store), my Oregon Spring tomatoes, my Gypsy peppers,my sliced green onions and my cilantro. I finished off the salad with re-fried pinto beans, tortilla chips, organic non-fat plain yogurt, Mexican shredded cheese blend, Pace picante sauce and a bit of hot taco sauce. It was a great dinner, and so fun to see that so much of it was from my garden.

More great news is that there are six healthy Gypsy pepper plants outside and more are beginning to ripen up. I'm hoping to have a bunch to freeze. I might have to pick some still green if a frost gets into the forecast, but we will see how many red ones we can get before then.

In tomato news, I have baskets of Honey Bunch grape tomatoes on the counter along with a few Oregon Spring tomatoes. The Roma VF's are being really slow to ripen and the plants don't look very well, but we will take what we get.

The kids still get a strawberry or two each day and have even started "grazing" on the green onions...hmmm. I get a handful of green beans every few days and the chest freezer has lots of sliced zucchini stored.

We picked one cucumber last week!!! It was a great day for preschooler, who ate the whole bowl of sliced cucumber before anyone else made it to the dinner table. So, it's the summer of the lone cucumber.

We have lots of kale sitting in the garden. It's fun to chop it up into any soup. I even made a pizza with kale pesto sauce. It takes a lot more cooking than you'd think by looking at it. Cook it as long as you would carrot slices, at least.

I continue to be amazed by the production of my little garden for such an off year. We are getting more than we can keep up with each day, and we are eating more vegetables than ever. One of my lessons this year is to always grow a small tomato. Those Honey Bunch grape tomatoes are producing just like it's been a hot summer. They don't care about the rain or the cold. They keep growing and ripening up and looking healthy . They're so much fun, and they taste great!