I just picked these amazing NJ peppers – Why it’s alarming

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 Jersey, I should not be going this far into the season with warm weather crops.

It's not that there haven't been cool days. Rather, the overnight lows are not dropping to the point they used to, which is why these plants are still doing as well as they are.

Yes, some parts of New Jersey have already had that first freeze and the growing season is officially over. But it seems like with every passing year that critical killing freeze is happening later and later. At least in my part of New Jersey, it is.

And to see my garden extend its life with produce such as tomatoes and peppers is both awesome and concerning at the same time. I love the fact that I can go out and pick beautifully full-sized and fully-ripened bell peppers in late November.

But do keep in mind, that I shouldn't be having this luxury at this point of the year in my part of New Jersey, and that's where it becomes alarming.

I guess since there's nothing I can really do to get those freezes to come back as early as they used to be, I'll just keep enjoying what seems to be the new, extended growing season in the Great Garden State.

The above post reflects the thoughts and observations of New Jersey 101.5 Sunday morning host & content contributor Mike Brant. Any opinions expressed are his own.