Nancy and I ate our last peaches for breakfast this morning.

This brings to an end almost three months -- from the very early strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and peaches -- of having homegrown fruit on our cereal. The dried cranberries are going to be a step back.

After years of defending the fruit from Reliance peach trees, I will say that the fruit from the Red Haven tree are sweeter, larger and ripen more evenly than the fruit from the Reliance tree. The Reliance does ripen earlier.

The watermelon are still producing. I somehow can't see cutting up watermelon and putting that on our cereal, though. Perhaps we should just have a slice or two on the side.

For other garden news, we have produced four red peppers, all from plants produced from pepper seedlings purchased at the Portland farmers market at Deering Oaks. I find it a bit amusing that the first pepper plant to produce a red pepper was the Green Ace variety, whereas the ones with red in their name have not yet turned red.

The Marconi hybrid peppers we are growing to grill look great, long and large, but haven't shown even a hint of red yet. This morning's forecast said there is a chance of frost in the mountains, but not yet at the coast. We'll give the peppers a few more weeks to turn color.

By the way, if you want some ideas on figuring out what is ailing your home plants -- whether vegetables or ornamentals -- check out Sunday's column, which gives you some tips on telling whether it the damage is caused by bugs or diseases.

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