The first half of September is almost behind us, and for the last few days, it’s been constantly raining, leaving me no chance to tend to the garden. It makes me quite sad, but today I seized a moment when the sun briefly came out and went to get my hands dirty!

I removed the pepper bushes that won’t produce any more fruit, picked the red strawberries, which I washed and froze according to my wife’s instructions — they’re destined for December’s compote! I didn’t manage to pick the tomatoes or trim the leaves on the celery because it started raining again. Luckily, next week is forecast to be dry and warm, so I’ll just wait.

I thought the tomatoes would also be ready to be pulled out, but these crazy plants are still fruiting! Lots of beautiful, orange cherry tomatoes are waiting to be picked, and new, green ones are still growing. It’s the same with the Toscana strawberries — the only variety I have, and they fruit non-stop. They’re not as juicy and large as the ones that fruit just once, but they’re perfect for compote!

My wife and I also have mini peppers. They’re colorful, tiny, and there’s a ton of them. Or more! And they’re also damn nasty! It turns out they taste like a chewed-up allspice berry, or pepper, or something in between. We’ve decided to leave this bush as a decorative element in the garden, and when the time comes, we’ll just throw it out and be done with it!

Then there’s the Habanero pepper plant. Now that’s a real challenge! We’ve read that you shouldn’t pick the fruit with bare hands, and when removing the seeds, you have to be careful not to get the juice on your skin. It would be a real tragedy if it got in your eyes! And we’re so scared of this plant that we haven’t picked any of the peppers. But my better half has an ambitious plan: to gut them, dry them, and grind them into a powder. The goal is to create her dream sweet and spicy seasoning. More on the spicy side, but apparently, it will be sweet too. I’m counting on us succeeding!

Additionally, as you might have seen on Instagram, color-changing solar lights have appeared in our garden! At first, I bought two to mount near the new bird feeder, but when my wife saw them, she sent me out the next day to buy more! Now we have nine of them, and at night it’s just as colorful as during the day!

That’s all for today, my faithful gardeners. We’re waiting for better weather and more tales from the garden!