Rapid growing small bok choi. I got spring and fall crops of this. It's said to be the most heat resistant, but we had no real heat this year, so I couldn't test that. Just starting to pick the fall crop now. It suffered some pest damage early in the fall, even under row cover, so I had to spray, but it bounced back. This will definitely be in my garden every year from now on.

Lacinato kale - A

I like the upstanding growth habit of this. Although one plant did flop over, it returned to upright growth. Easy to harvest the new tender leaves. It grew through the summer with no problems, although next year I think I'll grow it just for fall, as I didn't use it in summer.

Fortex pole bean - C-

It's probably just me. For some reason, I can't grow pole beans. These were stunted, while 10 feet away, the bush beans were flourishing. The beans I did harvest were fine, but I see no reason to try these again.

Moskvich tomato - F-

Supposed to be an early tomato, something along the lines of 4th of July. Stunted, runted plant never produced a single ripe fruit and I pulled it in sheer disgust.

Tomatoes:

Marglobe: A-: Produced fast and hard as expected, nice tasting decent medium size. Yield wasn't bad for a determinate, I think. But only one flush of tomatoes. Will plant again.

El Fresco Hybrid Spanish Tomatoes: B-: Grew much bigger, but got less yield than the Marglobe as by the time it is getting into gear, it is nearly Fall. I did start them late. But nice that they came in as the Marglobe was ending. Will not plant again, try an indeterminate that isn't a mystery hybrid, maybe a nice beafsteak.

Tami G Grape: A+: Considering the not so sunny spot in the garden they got, yield and taste were excellent, will definitely plant again.

Super Sweet 100: B+: Yield was not nearly that of the Tami G, I liked the Tami G taste better. Nice to have variety though. Maybe plant again.

Napa Grape Tomato: D: Did not grow well indoors and barely survived transplanting. Still haven't gotten a red tomato from this guy. Definitely won't grow next year.

Bush Table Queen Acorn Squash: B+: Ripened very fast, compact bush plants. Not sweet or large but very tasty. Will plant again, or maybe try the vining type if I have the space.

Waltham Butternut: C: Takes forever to mature. Only now getting a couple ripe fruit. Fruit not fully ripened is tasteless. Will probably plant something else next year, though the SVB and PM resistance was nice.

Small Sugar Pumpkins: B+: Got 4 pumpkins per plant... more than plenty. Haven't really cooked any yet. Succumbed a little early to PM.

I can post all my other stuff, if people are interested... I planted tons.

Tomatoes:
Green Zebra: unproductive and very slow. Was the biggest and healthiest plant when I planted it in there but it did almost the worst. Very disappointing. D

Rosso Sicilian: Terrible, mediocre taste even for sauces. Uneven ripening. A weird tomato. F-

Cherokee Purple: Grew very well, nice big tomatoes, excellent flavor. A+

Black Cherry: Lovely flavor, huge plant and many tomatoes. A-

Peppers:

Nardellos: yummy flavor! Slow growth but had a weird summer. A-

Cubanelle: Loved the flavor. Nice-sized peppers. Will grow again. A+

Cucumbers:
Speedway: Bad production. Got these as seedlings. Not impressed. C

Basil:
Purple basil: Loved this one! Grew well and tasted delicious. Will grow again. A+

Squash: Haven't tasted most of my squash. Still curing.

Spaghetti squash: (New to me) Prolific and easy to maintain. Nice flavor. A

Waltham Butternut: Great plant, nice amount of squash. Takes a long time to grow. May be too long for my growing season. B+

Winter Luxury: Very unproductive. Takes 6 weeks for one small pumpkin. Waiting to see if the taste will change my mind.

Baby Blue Hubbard: Slow as well. But to be fair, slowed way down due to slow summer start and started to wilt. Will try this and WL again to double check production.

Peas were Premium (shelling) from Johnny's. Excellent yield on short plants and they seemed fast enough for our uncertain springs where it can get suddenly hotter than peas like. Also tried Amish Snap peas. They were good, but slower than I expected, but then again they were the ones a mole tunnelled under so maybe they didn't get a fair shake this year. I also tried Sugar Sprint (snap). They performed as advertised, and had the mostly stringlessness I was looking for. I will probably plant all of these again next spring.

Tomato was Hungarian-Italian Paste. I was very pleased with this one. It is a determinate heirloom, which is neat, so many deterrminates seem to be F1s, but I could save seed from this type. The flavor is exactly what I was looking for when cooked down, nice, balanced tomato flavor. Yield was great, but then again we had an amazing year for fruit set on tomatoes. Most interesting to me, was when this was pressed into juice and pulp for cooking down into sauce it had a grainy quality to the pulp and not very much juice... In short all of the qualities I was led to expect a paste tomato to have but had never before found in the others I tried. This one is a keeper for me.

Peppers I tried were Beaver Dam, Jimmy Nardello, and Aji Omnicolor. They were all quite good. Beaver Dam is hot when raw, similar to jalapeno, but the heat cooks right out if you use it stuffed or otherwise cooked. Jimmy Nardello were excellent especially fried in olive oil with a little salt. Reminded me of some shishitos we had in a restaurant back in May. And Aji Omnicolor is very prolific and beautiful. It has a flavor similar to, but distinctly different from the Aji Pineapples I always grow for making hot sauce. They make a great vinegared sliced pepper and make my hot sauce even better. All three peppers are ones I will likely plant again.

The squash were both moschatas, Musque de Provence and Waltham Butternut. The butternuts did quite well, with two squash per plant and came to maturity much faster than the listed 100 days. Musque de Provence only had one squash per plant, but since the average weight of the fruit was 20 lbs, I don't think I would have known what to do if they had set 2 per vine! These are curing now, but the immature fruit I've started eating are quite good too. Most important was that all vines survived to maturity thanks to good SVB resistance! I wish I could find a squash with good flavor like MdP (I plante it this year because I liked the ones I bought at Farmers Market so much) but with drier texture. But I will certainly grow these again.

And finally, the field pea was Zipper Cream. I love it, mild flavor, great yield. I'll be planting these next year too.

So, I liked everything new that I tried. I think that means I'm getting better at knowing the characteristics I'm looking for in my different vegetables. Which is good, because you know how they make every different type sound amazing in those seed catalogs in midwinter!

Sweetest tomato I've ever grown (I grew over 10 varieties this year), and good producer too! Whenever I'd bring an assortment of tomatoes to a social gathering, this one would always be the most popular.

All Blue potatoes - extremely poor yield, barely more than what I planted in seed tubers. I doubt I will try again.

Joseph's Coat Amaranth - I wanted a shorter, pretty amaranth that I could grow in the front yard. Next year I will go with Love Lies Bleeding instead, as I was very disappointed with leaf yield and comparative taste to other amaranths.

Maize Japonica - grew it for ornamental purposes, and it was indeed a very pretty corn plant. I have saved the kernels for cornmeal later but haven't tried them yet for taste. Yields were very high, an average of 3+ full size ears per stalk - one stalk had five huge ears. Planted them in an old strawberry field with no new added fertilizer, so I was impressed. Don't know if I will plant again or not, it depends on the taste of the cornmeal.

- Sweet Chocolate bell pepper: Very yummy. Yield had been so-so but they are in an area without enough sun to maximize their potential.

- Padron and Shishito peppers: Both had excellent yield and good flavor but I kind of got bored with frying them and they're really small so they're kind of useless otherwise (seeding them is a huge pain). Won't grow again for that reason.

- Druzba tomato: Flavor was pretty good, yield was so-so. I tried them because they are a disease resistant heirloom, and they certainly fared better than most other heirlooms (with all of the rain). But they died earlier than I was hoping. My tried and true Eva Purple Ball are still going strong, and they taste better. Will not grow Druzba again. Will try Marglobe next.

- Napoletano basil: Really great flavor, but disappointing yield. A lot of the leaves turned yellow, and the stalks turned dark brown (almost moldy). Very strange because I have never had a problem growing basil before. I won't grow them again.

It was an absolutely miserable gardening season here, the worst I have experienced in my 30 plus years of gardening. I am glad the season is almost over, good riddance as far as I am concerned. I want to finish harvesting, get the gardens cleaned up, get the garlic planted in late October, dig and process the horseradish early November, and then completely forget about gardening for a couple of months.

-Tom

Magic Myrna...really yummy potato available from Alaskan growers.

Alma Whitaker pole beans. Simply wonderful!

All three on my next year's "for sure" list.

Other things I planted:

Home Depot Norland Red Early Season Potatoes - Came nice and early, but yields were mediocre. Will try a different variety next year if I can find something that isn't too expensive.

Home Depot Mid-Late Season Red Onion Set (80) - These made terribly sized bulbs. Definitely will not plant again, want to try growing from seed for bigger bulbs.

Sweet Peppers:
Bonnie's Cubanelle
Bonnie's Orange Bell
Bonnie's Red Bell

These all did terrible. Will see other options next year. But probably the fault of the weather and garden conditions (pests/soil).

Hot Peppers:
Bonnie's Hot Banana
Bonnie's Jalapeno

The Jalapeno's did OK and I will definitely grow these again, but the Hot Banana did meh, though I did get a few of them. Really bad pepper year first year. Only the Jalapenos did ok.

Carrots:
Burpee A#1 Hybrid
Burpee Nantes Champion

Both of these did OK but nothing spectacular size-wise and will look at other options next year.

Romaine Lettuce Little Gem - Took all Summer from early spring to make anything worth harvesting, will not plant again.

Burpee Bibb - These did great, will definitely plant again.

Burpee French Filet Bush - Produced very well, all summer long the beans kept coming off of small bush plants, will grow again next year.

Maxibel Bush Beans - A- Very good flavor and tenderness. Pretty good yield. A little vines, think I would try them on a trellis next time.

Golden Gate Pole Bean B- I guess they were okay. Tender enough if you didn't wait too long to pick them. But they stay a little green until bigger. Very flat and long like an Italian bean. Production was just okay. I'm trying a different wax bean next year.

Ministro Cucumber A+ Wow. What a ton of cucumbers on healthy vigorous vines. Climbed to the top of a 7ft trellis. We had so many we were sick of them. Gave a lot away. Just pulled them out last weekend.

Costata Romanesca Squash C+ Everyone enjoyed eating them well enough. Not like the usual summer squash we've grown before. Much larger. They had a bad case of Powdery Mildew by the time they were done. And the leaves and stems are prickly making them difficult to work around. Hope to try something else next year.

Jericho Romaine Lettuce - A This was another winner in the garden this year. From Israel, claims to hold up in the heat and it sure did. Started them late and we were still eating them in July. Tall tender heads.

Prize Choy Bok Choy - B+ Easy to grow, not quite as large, or as dark green on the top or as wide at the bottom of each stem as I would have liked, but very good. I may look to try another one next time, but I'd grow this one again.

Arcadia Broccoli B Supposed to stand up to the heat. We started this late and it grew through the summer and didn't produce a head until the heat broke. I'd grow it again, but also looking for another. I want to try Packman next year.

Gonzales Cabbage - A+ This was another winner. These are small soft ball size cabbages. They look so small and you can fit a lot of them in a bed. When we harvested them, one cabbage was enough for one meal for two or three people. No leftovers which I like. Definitely growing these again.

Fourth of July Tomato A This was a surprise. I didn't realize these were supposed to be small. The first couple of tomatoes didn't taste all that flavorful, and they were not ripe by Fourth of July, but they were our first tomato to ripen and they were ripe in July and we've had a steady supply of them since and still going. After the first few, the tomatoes did become much more flavorful. None of the other tomatoes did well this year, so this was a life saver. These were about 3x the size of a cherry tomato.

Trionfo de Violette Purple Pole Beans - B+ They did well. Produced a fair amount. Beans are very easy to pick and come off with a gentle pull. Turn green when cooked. The foliage has a purple cast to it. Would like to try it one more year to be sure I like it enough.

Rodney

New varieties that stood out:
Little Leaf Cucumber
Moon and Stars yellow watermelon
Green Magic broccoli
everbearing strawberries Albion and Seascape were way better than AC Wendy

Anne, yes, they were bigger plants and bigger fruits than I normally would expect from summer squash.

Verona Tomatoes: Replaced San Marzano with them this year, and the Verona actually ripened early. When I read on a thread here that San Marzanos were hardly ripening this cold summer, I was really glad I'd done the replacement. Flavor better than the SM's. Will definitely keep doing the Veronas.

Floriani Red Flint corn. Haven't harvested yet, but because I planted it I skipped the sweet corn for fear of cross pollination even if I waited the right number of weeks between plantings. So we're missing sweet corn this year. Will probably skip the Red Flint next year and go back to sweet.

Peter1142 -- be patient with the Butternut and you may well like it better. Harvest when it's tan, cure in the sun for a couple weeks, and then wait at least two months with it stored at around 55 degrees before you eat it. Then it will be sweeeeet.

Sunnibel -- I love MdeP pumpkin! It has become a staple winter food for us. My recipes: Curried pumpkin soup, vegetarian ground nut stew, pumpkin bread, or just sauteed with herbs.
How do you use it? (Always looking for new MdeP recipes, since you get so many pounds of pumpkin out of them!)

Back on topic:

-Piros pepper: Tasted good but didn't produce as well as I had hoped. Will try them again next year.

-Jade bush beans: Good taste, poor production. Don't know what the problem was as everyone else seems to get large yields. I'll plant them again next year and see what happens.

-Sugar Daddy and Cascadia snap peas: Putting these together since they both performed about the same. Fairly low production and they weren't very sweet. (I was having some issues with legumes this year apparently.) I'll give them another chance next year.

-Purple Artichokes: Complete waste of space. I had thought I sufficiently vernalized the seedlings but obviously not since I never got a 'choke. I won't start new seedlings next year but I will try to overwinter the plants I currently have. Do not see myself planting these ever again unless I have a MUCH larger vegetable garden.

-Cardoons: They're growing well but I have yet to taste them. As with the artichokes, I won't plant again unless I have a bigger garden.

-Horseradish: I honestly don't expect much as I've got it growing in a large container. I just wanted to grow it for fun and will continue to do so.

-Qindao 65 chinese cabbage: Planted the seeds way too late and don't expect them to head up before it frosts/freezes. Will definitely plant again next year.

Rodney

Rodney- move a cardoon to a central spot in a flowerbed. They are spectacular ornamentals even if you never eat them.

Rodney

Also, I had to look up the word "bisque" and see that I should be trying other recipes besides just the curry one :)

Mortgage Lifter Tomato - B: Plant was very heavy and hard to train because of the massive fruits. Despite this, tomatoes are great raw or cooked, are equally meaty and juicy, and ripen to a bright pink-red.

Arikara Yellow Bean - A+: Bush bean plants that tolerated some heat and produced many delicious beans. The green bean pods are flatter than usual, but I prefer the bean dried/shelled. 6-8 beans per pod on the bigger, more typical pods.

Moruga Scorpion Pepper - A: Although it's getting late in the season and the peppers are still not ripe (we're talking 1-2 weeks before the first frost and not a single ripe pepper), there are at least 50 peppers on this single plant. It seems to enjoy the southeastern MA summer temps and humidity.

Borage - A+: After only one season, borage reliably seeded itself. The bees absolutely love this flower, which is still blooming despite the cooler nighttime temps. Some seeds have germinated and are trying a go at "fall season" growth. Until next year, when there's borage growing every and anywhere in my yard...

Goji Berry/Wolf Berry - B-: Although the plant rooted well and has been productive all summer long, the berries have an odd aftertaste that I'm not sure I'm fond of yet. Whether or not I like the taste, the plant's attractive raspberry-like habit, bright purple flowers, and bright scarlet berries make it an attractive perennial, year round.

New Zealand Spinach - C: I still haven't eaten a leaf from my NZ Spinach plants, which were supposed to thrive in the heat. They just weren't productive in the manner I grew them. I wasted all of my seeds trying to germinate the plant. Oh well.

Zinnia - A+: I still can't believe that my zinnias are blooming, and I've cut them down at least 5 times this season. I knew they were easy to grow, but now I wonder why I didn't grow MORE?

Cosmos - B-: I had never heard of Cosmos before last year. I didn't read the many warning that Cosmos might prefer poor soil conditions. I went ahead and planted the cosmos in the veggie garden's soil. The stalks are taller than me (6' 2") and have only just begun blooming (over 90 days since germination). I'm unsure if the flowers were worth the suspense.

Bee's Friend - C+: This flower attracted my puppy more than it did the bees. In fact, I had Bee's Friend gloriously blooming in a patch next to where a catmint was also blooming, and the bee's wanted absolutely nothing to do with their "friend". I will give bee's friend another shot, but if it doesn't live up to it's name next season, it's out.

I used to always include cosmos in my sunny perennial bed that was on the wild side. I’ve tamed it down considerably and stopped growing cosmos, for about 6 years, for that reason. Then, last year, on impulse, I bought a six pack of cosmos locally to add to the perennial bed again, but I discovered they were a shorter bushier version. Probably about 3ft and they stand up on their own and have a lot of bushy foliage. They reseeded and came back on their own this year and were even better than last year. We had quite a bit for cutting for vases. Strangely, one patch that was in more shade bloomed more than the patch that was in full sun. At least that is the only difference I’ve been able to notice. One patch is just starting to bloom, very late. I’m happy to have them reseed for me and am allowing them to go to seed now.

Marjoram was amazing this year. I’ve grown it for awhile, but I usually cut it back after it flowers. This year I didn’t get around to doing that and I’ve noticed that the plant keeps pushing out new flowers over a very long period of time. Still doing it. Bees of all kinds, wasps, all over it for weeks and weeks. Also makes a nice addition to a vase. Only problem is it flops open in the center. Next year, I will give it some support and will divide my plant to have more for the pollinators. It outlasted nepeta and agastache for pollinator visits. Nepeta was covered with Bumble Bees this year, every time I passed it as long as it was in flower which was most of the time.

Do Cosmos reseed easily? I was considering cutting the stalks down for decoration (considering their size) but I'm wondering if a winter sowing would initiate growth earlier, and stronger, growth in the Spring?

off topic:
It's funny that you mention the massive amounts of wasps you're seeing; I remember trading plants with you and know we're in the same region. I was stung for the first time in my garden by a rather large wasp grazing my sunflowers. It turns out that Umass extension released wasps in Seekonk to control Winter Moths. They are fans of so many types of flowers!

I think the way the flowers emerge from the foliage has a lot to do with why my growing method (single pole) didn't work after all..

Tomatoes: Matt's Wild Cherry: B+
Fruit grew quickly, but took *ages* to ripen, and they didn't do it all at once. So far, it hardly grew a second yield. However, I put these in an upside down container with only about 1.5- 2 gallons of soil. I'll blame it partly on the container. Also, when ripe, these taste *wonderful*! They hardly make it to the kitchen for me to rinse them off =)

Basil: B+
In the same container as the Matt's Wild Cherry. It tasted great and grew very fast, producing tons of leaves, tasting and smelling great. However, these started to go bitter very quickly, even though this summer wasn't even that hot. I made some cuttings to transplant, but they didn't improve much and grew very slowly. Also, some stalks were extremely prolific, while some stayed short. What's up with that?

Tomatoes: Large Red Cherry: C
Growing in a 5 gallon container, the plant grew very fast and began to produce dozens of tomatoes quickly - maybe 30 of them before they even started to turn red. They are still taking a long time to ripen. Many of them have been on there over a month, and are still light green. They get like 8 hours of sun, deep watering, fertilizer, sometimes compost tea, and only one or two will ripen at a time. Frustrating! Also, these taste very "raw" and "earthy" at first. They LOOK ripe and feel slightly soft, but I have to let them get "extra ripe" to taste good.

I got impatient and made a salsa verde with some of these, and it came out great!

Eggplant: Rosa Bianca: ???
The plant has grown to a decent size, gets lots of sun and I water when the soil seems dry. It puts out fruit often - sometimes with pretty flowers - but before it grows to an edible size, the fruit gets eaten by animals! I was soooo looking forward to eating even one of these! =(

Bell Peppers: Mixed colors of Heirlooms: A
So far, so good! Very slow germination, and slow to get true leaves, but once I put it outside, slow to really kick off. 1 out of 3 seedlings did well, but it is in a container growing quite big now. It has a pepper the size of a kiwi on it, that was only noticeable in the last week or two. Little blooms on it every day, so I'm hoping it will be productive =)

Bush beans: B-
These grow into a bush quickly, but I've had varying success with different seeds from the same pack. Planted my first two in a protected box in full sun, and some against a wall with 4-5 hours of sun. The ones in the box grew large, quick, tasty beans, but not much, and slow to grow the second yield.

I have planted them in diff locations with varying amounts of sun, and they grow leaves quickly, but the beans have looked either small and shriveled, or light yellow and overly plump, with hardly any yield! I credit it to the weather, because the first crop was so good! Still fun to watch these things grow, like little trees.

Leaf Lettuce: French salad mix: B
The seedlings grow super fast inside, hard to germinate outside. Once germinated, in good conditions, it grows fast, and you can even eat the seedlings! They taste better and heartier than what's at the supermarket. I'd give an A if they were easier to grow outside and easier to transplant.

new this year:

Hyacinth bean. Very pleasing, absolutely gorgeous plant.

An edible gourd, Serpente di Sicilia. Ended up being quite productive, but it was a bit tough getting them going, poor and slow germination, and slow growing at first. May have been due to colder than normal summer. Nevertheless quite pleasing, unusual white flowers, and snake-like fruits.

Litchi tomato, won't bother with it again. Same for husk tomato.

Also, the rat-tailed radish was a new crop. Got a lot of "rat tails", but got bored with them quickly when the main crop of cucumbers and tomatoes began. But I will still grow a few plant every year for salads.

My Cosmos reseed just about every year. I think it does depend on if you have enough bare ground in your beds. Some years, when I have over done it on the mulch, I’ve hardly had any. I have winter sown them before, I but I don’t remember if they were any earlier than what reseeds. It would be an interesting experiment.

Have we traded plants? :-)

I haven’t seen a lot of wasps lately, but when there were a lot of tiny caterpillars on the brassicas, they were everywhere. Now I’m seeing mostly bumble bees right now. All over the sedums and one Clethra ‘Sherry Sue’ that is in bloom right now. I hope the wasps that control Winter Moths find me! :-)

Thanks for the detailed description of your experiences with the Scarlet Runner Bean. I am definitely going to try those next year. I have a 7ft x 7ft trellis I can grow them on.

Thanks for the link, too and sorry it took so long for me to get back to you.

Yields have been amazing on these beans, and of the Russo tomatoes too. All three are keepers!
Here's what the Russo's look like. To call them weird? I'm confused, they look beautiful to me.

This was my first time growing several varieties of winter squash: Red Kuri, Sweet Dumpling, and Waltham Butternut. I haven't eaten any of them yet, but if they taste as good as they look, I'll be growing them again. The Walthams were supposed to be Rogosa Violina Gioia Butternut, but there was a mix-up at the seed supplier.

Buttercup has always been my favorite, and they look good too.

We had a ‘volunteer’ squash come up in the garden this year, which I was waiting to talk about until after we tasted it. Wow! Very surprised that they all tasted as you would expect a Spaghetti Squash to taste. That was a nice bonus, three squashes from one plant. I don’t normally grow Spaghetti Squash, but we will plant them next year.

So far, I’m only a fan of Butternut and Spaghetti Squash. Haven’t tried Red Kuri, which is a beautiful squash, or Sweet Dumpling or Buttercup. Haven’t enjoyed Delicata or Acorn. I think I would like to try that Red Kuri just for the prettiness of the squash…lol.

Alisande -- what does the Red Kuri, Sweet Dumpling and Buttercup taste like?

Well also 4 of Purple King, so 8 plants. That is a 2 day harvest, what I picked in 2 days, and was typical of yields. Both are still producing today, yield is down, they are at last slowing down.
Often in the instructions for beans it says to plant batches weekly for a staggered harvest, but these things just keep producing since they started. A few weeks of break during the dog days of summer. So not sure you really need to do that?

I used Trionfo de Violette which is a purple bean and tried a bush bean, Maxibel which was very good. I can't really compare yields though because I don't have full sun, so I would expect mine would be off.

Nice to have another variety to try. :-)

Pole beans are supposed to keep producing, but I've never managed to get them to produce well at all.

Orange California Wonder bell pepper-- Absolutely! Delicious, productive, and hardy.

NeonLights swiss chard -- very good, gorgeous chard. Yes, I would grow it again next spring.

Golden Star hybrid bell pepper -- Pretty good yellow sweet peppers, nice blocky stuffing shape. I'd grow them again.

Orange Tendersweet watermelon -- should be ripe soon, so I will update this later. So far it's been easy to grow and disease resistant, although not very productive (two per vine...is that normal production for a watermelon?).

It was a short, cold summer, but I'm thinking this isn't the right climate for these.

I had one cultivar that didn't produce, maybe try some others? I have had numerous failures too, part of finding out what works. On Poblano peppers which take about 90 days, maybe try a hybrid? Like this one

I really do prefer my peppers ripe, not green. My bell peppers managed to put out some red ones before the end of the season. The Anchos outproduced them in number but never got near ripening, and the flavor of the green ones was pretty harsh.

here's a photo of them in the cold frame

Baltimore Fish Peppers- Took forever to germinate and get growing but the variegated leaves are gorgeous and the small peppers are quite hot and delicious. A+ (especially because I'm from Baltimore!)

Baxter's Early Bush- These produced well- large, tough-skinned cherry tomatoes that looked great and tasted like super market tomatoes. I won't waste the space next year but just do all Sweet 100s (my dogs' favorite treat) and SunGolds.

MoonCake Edamame from Southern Exposure- Grew like crazy and produced tons of delicious pods. A winner for us.

A bag of cheap shallots on the clearance rack at Lowes for 2 bucks-Picasso and Yellow Moon: These produced a ton of tasty shallots. Not as delicious as French Red but the yield for the price was excellent.