See those three peppers above? I just picked them from my outdoor New Jersey garden on Nov. 18, 2024. My garden's actually been producing beautifully all year long.
Peppers are always one of those we need to be patient with, especially with the bells. Although they grow fairly quickly, they take quite a while to fully ripen like the ones above. Sure, the green ones are fine too, but they're so much sweeter and tastier when fully ripened.
In fact, the bell peppers aren't the only things still growing in my garden. Believe it or not, my tomatoes are also still going strong. Now granted, we really don't have pollinators out anymore so any new flowers that open most likely won't produce anything.
For the most part, everything I still have was pollinated some time ago and I'm just waiting out the ripening process. This is the part I love. And the fact that we're officially past the halfway point of November makes this even more exciting.
When I first moved into my house and started a backyard garden 10 years ago, I would've never imagined having warm-weather vegetables still going strong so late in the season. In fact, it wasn't until 2021 when I first had peppers make it to the halfway point of November. And last year, in 2023, my garden peppers and tomatoes made it past Thanksgiving for the first time.
10 years ago, they didn't even come close to the holiday. But today? It's starting to seem like that's the norm. And that's the part that rings alarm bells.
Where I live in New Je.