While in Maine

I returned from my Maine vacation last week and was happy to check in on the garden. "Everyone" did fine while I was away for the most part (I had a friend keeing an eye on them). Weeds are now starting to grow around the fence perimeter so I will need to do some more weeding! I guess the good news is that the weeding among the SFG boxes continues to be very minimal! Here are a few more updates:

• the Sugar Snap Peas are growing like crazy; and along with the cucumbers, I am realizing that training them to climb the trellis is a little more time consuming than I thought.
• something is eating the leaves on a few plants, especially the pumpkin; I am going to have to get more proactive in bug defense!
  
• I have lots of tomatoes on all 4 plants, but none are turning red yet
• I harvested lettuce leaves off my Head Lettuce (good news since I was at first skeptical that it would survive after transplanting it from Home Depot)
  
• I have another Mandarin Pepper growing, however this one has small bumps all over it. I am assuming it is some sort of disease, but have yet to figure it out. Also, although this pepper plant has a lot of blossoms, many are falling off-stem and all. I am not sure if this is a natural process, or if something is affecting the plant. Thoughts? Here is a picture of the bumps I was talking about, and you can also see the two peppers side by side.
  

While I was vacationing in Maine, the local town was having an event, "Bloomin' Bucksport." The Bucksport Garden Club brought in a local author who recently published a book about creating a perennial flower garden so that you have continuous blooms from spring through fall. The book is The Ever-Blooming Flower Garden: A Blueprint for Continuous Color by Lee Schneller.
It was a great talk and she showed how her book was designed to really make the planning stage as easy as possible. Some of the plants she talked about were specific to the Maine coast (Zone 5), but I am sure her book covers all zones. Unfortunately, when I went to buy the book and have it signed, they were all sold out! So, I have to order mine online. Although the event's main attraction was Lee Schneller's talk, shops all over the town joined forces to give discounts to attendees. It was a great event, even with the dreary rain we had!

I am now off to the garden but will try to post another report later!