That brownish greenish color is the normal transition from green to red. Left a few days on the plant or kitchen counter it would have turned completely red - just like a tomato does. Check my post below on "Harvest Pics" for a pic.

Thanks Jen Rick

Carol, For me, the likely difference this year is both that the combination of rain and some irrigation kept the garden producing AND we've had very few grassfires at our end of the county, so I haven't been running all over feeding/hydrating firefighters. In a drier year, I wouldn't have a lot left to harvest by now, and that's assuming I wasn't running to fires and even had time to harvest and put food by. The bulk of my food preservation is usually in spring/early sumer when the broccoli, corn, potatoes, green beans, onions and tomatoes are in production big-time. Okra, peppers, melons and black-eyed peas are usually a bit later, and then from late July on, there usually isn't much to put up because I cook it and we eat it about as quickly as I harvest it. So, in August and September, I'm more likely to be harvesting and drying herbs or deadheading flowers/seed saving, etc. This year is just odd all around....everything was late. Most of the tomatoes had to be dealt with in July, although there's enough every week to put up a couple of quarts, eat all we want, and give a few away. The peppers, though, just keep coming. If the fall green beans, black-eyed peas, cucumbers and sweet corn do well, I'll have no complaints....the spring green beans and corn weren't that great in terms of quantity produced. Ilene, I think I am going to pull most of the squash and all of the melon plants today. They've had every pest and disease problem under the sun in August and aren't healthy enough to bother with at this point. I really miss having the guineas and the free-range chickens. My garden is completely full of grasshoppers, squash bugs, stink bugs and leaf-footed bugs and the dreaded spider mites. I haven't seen any lady bugs this week. I wonder where they went. At least pulling the melons and squash will leave me some space for cold-season plants. Game bird, Sorry to hear about the pesticide burn. I just won't spray hardly anything at all in my garden other than Spinosad, which is organic. I was going to spray it today, but it is rainy, so there's no point. I hate using any spray at all, even organic ones. My melons have really declined, so I am yanking them out today. I think their problem mostly is red spider mites and there is nothing much you can do about them (or, at least, nothing I'll spray in my garden). I need to get the cold season stuff in the ground ASAP now that we're not having 100-degree days any more. Seems like we had to wait forever for the August temperatures to break here. Gardening is always a learning experience, and sometimes I think I have to re-learn the same lessons over and over again. Most years, some things produce heavily and others don't, so this year has been that way for me. My usually reliable potatoes and onions both did poorly, apparently because they didn't appreciate receiving 18" of rain in 4 or 5 weeks. Everything else, except beans, has done well though. Still, I am glad we don't rely solely on the garden for our produce. I am hoping for a late first freeze so the fall plants have a chance to be as productive as the spring plants have been. Dawn

All depends on how badly you need the space. And the size/amount of the second growth all depends on how much you have fed/feed it. I have plenty of room so mine is always left for a second and even a third harvest if the weather allows. In other words I leave it up to the weather to do it in, not me. :) Don't know where you are located (you really need to add that to your profile so it comes up automatically) so I can't comment on the odds of your weather giving you a second harvest or not. Dave