Although I was starting to wonder if it would ever happen, we have finally moved from Spring into Summer. It was an exceptionally cold spring, and so far it’s an exceptionally cool summer. It’s the middle of July and I’m not sure we’ve hit 90 degrees yet. Many years we’re above 100 by now.

We went out of town for the past two weekends to drive up around the Olympic Peninsula and then ride our bikes from Seattle to Portland. It was nice a sunny in the northwest, but the neighbors tell me it rained here almost every day. It seems the garden really liked all that extra water. I almost didn’t recognize it when we got back. Everything is looking really good now, even the peppers.

We picked the rest of the peas, though most were way overripe, hard, and woody. We also started digging up potatoes. Charmaine has had fresh potatoes for dinner almost every night since we’ve been home from Seattle. We’ve even been able to start picking peppers. So far just banana peppers, but it looks like it’s going to be a good year for peppers.

Really the only thing still lacking is beans. I don’t know what it is, but they just don’t want to grow this year. They have finally sprouted, but they seem to be way behind. Maybe it’s the lack of hot days? We may never know.

We picked peas several times this week, including two bags at a party last night. The peas are still going strong, but it’s really starting to warm up, and that usually means the peas will stop blooming. We also picked almost all the rest of the radishes. They were intermixed in a row of beets, but the beets are still looking quite small. The giant weeds growing alongside the beets probably don’t help at all.

The tomatoes are looking great. Other than the peas, they are the only part of the garden doing well. I keep avoiding adding a second row of string to help hold the plants in place in the wind, but I think they’re getting big enough now that I can’t avoid it anymore. It may even be time for a third row of string. We’ll have to see.

The peppers are finally starting to grow, but they still look far from anything I would call healthy. It will be sad if we don’t end up getting many peppers this year.

The beans have really been the biggest disappointment. We planted more beans this year than in any previous year, but they just don’t want to grow. We’ve even re-planted several of the rows, hoping to get something. We finally have one row of beans that may grow, but it’s so late now that I question if we’ll really get any.

Maybe next year won’t be so cold. Maybe next year won’t be so windy. Maybe next year I’ll let the soil rest instead of doing a garden again.

The question of what to do with all the Habanero Peppers has been weighing on my mind. They are so good, but so powerful. I’ve given away many, but people are reluctant to take very many, due to the power of these Caribbean peppers.

As luck would have it, I gave a few Habaneros to a friend at work. He made an excellent Habanero Jelly and brought some back to work. It was amazing. Suddenly I knew what I would do with the rest of the peppers… make jelly. We found a recipe at Culinary Cafe, but it didn’t use enough Habaneros. It only calls for “5 to 10” Habaneros per batch, and I wasn’t about to make 5 batches with the 40 to 50 peppers I had just picked. Instead, we would just increase the heat. Instead of “5 to 10” we would use “10 to 20”. That was a stroke of genius. I can’t get enough of it.

The summer just keeps on going, so we get to keep eating fresh veggies. The last couple weeks we’ve been cutting winter squash into cubes and grilling it with butter and nutmeg. Everything tastes better with nutmeg. Last week we did Butternut and Buttercup. This week we did Banana, Pumpkin, and more Buttercup (the current favorite). We also did skewers of potatoes and onions with zesty Italian salad dressing. Britt brought a Honeydew and wrapped small cubes of it in some Prosciutto. We made fresh salsa and guacamole that got eaten as soon as we made them. All that freshness really went well with the grass-finished steaks. Jessica made shortcake and whipped up some cream to have with the fresh peaches from the farmer’s market. Charmaine even made some pumpkin spice bread from a couple of our little Sugar Pumpkins. What a great meal.