The Benefits of a Summer Downpour

Last night brought us one of the first thunderstorms of the month. It rained for at least four hours, if not more, and I woke up to find my vegetable garden practically exploding with overnight changes. Things had started to ripen and beans had popped out of nowhere.

 

 The most startling evidence of this was one of my pepper plants that went from the first picture (take three days ago) to the second picture, taken this afternoon. The rain really got it to start ripening quickly. 

 

These peppers still have a bit to go...

And speaking of peppers, the grocery store peppers are still doing really well. They certainly get more sun than my poor veggie garden that has to endure a bunch of trees blocking some of it's much needed sun.

 

They seem to like it in front of the house. 

I also had my first small harvest of tomatoes. None of the big ones are ripe yet, but I'm starting to see them change color a bit. They're still mostly green though.

 

Cherry tomatoes. :)

 

 

The big tomatoes are still pretty green. Hopefully they'll ripen soon!

The beans burst out after the rain as well. A few days ago, all I saw were flowers, but now I have tons of young beans.

 

Looks like we're going to have lots of beans!

 

Sadly, I only have 16 more days left at home. Which means if things don't get ripe before then, I'll just have to trust my family to take care of the plants. I will have more horticulture posts though, as I'll be taking a course on Woody and Herbaceous plants. :) 

So I leave you with two flower shots of the week. The flower garden is still offering up new plants as the summer goes one. Enjoy!