Donaroma’s — the Edgartown landscape maintenance company, wholesaler and nursery — is setting roots in Oak Bluffs for the first time, with plans to open up a retail and wholesale operation on a large plot of cleared farmland off the Vineyard Haven-Edgartown Road.

Jamie Norton is looking forward to having his house back next winter. For years now his roommates — starter trays of peppers, eggplants, melons, cucumbers, gilo and other vegetables — have taken over his home each winter and spring, covering nearly all available space.

The summer of 2009 will be remembered for primarily one thing: rain.

“Summer? It didn’t start until the first week of August,” said James H.K. Norton of Norton Farm in Vineyard Haven. “We had no sun for two months. We planted everything in a timely fashion, but nothing ripened because there wasn’t any sun.”

Island farmers, fishermen and sailors all were affected by the bad weather.

Snap, shell, snow: June means pea season on the Vineyard.

It’s a rite of summer, seeing the “We Have Our Peas” sign placed for the first time in front of the Bayes Norton Farm stand on Edgartown-Vineyard Haven Road. (The Vineyarder who originally painted the sign wrote “Pease,” thinking it was spelled the same as the old Island family.)

Their peas are so sweet it’s as though owners Jamie and Dianne Norton added sugar to the soil.