I have had trouble with aphids in the past, but only when I was growing cold weather vegetables like Brussels sprouts. I remember yanking out all the plants and putting them in the trash because I couldn’t control those ugly gray aphids. I didn’t have a clue how to deal with them and I didn’t discover them until it was too late. Not this time.

This time I noticed one of the leaves of the zucchini plant had a ton of ants on it. Whenever I see a large group of ants, I wonder what’s going on… the ants are usually up to no good. I know ants herd aphids around like cattle, but I didn’t know aphids liked squash plants. To my surprise, when I turned the leaf over there were a bunch of little yellow dots being herded around by the ants. They were all very small, but when I looked closely I could tell they were aphids. Yellow aphids. That was new for me. So I smashed them all by putting one hand on the top of the leaf and then creating pressure with a finger on the under side of the leaf. The ants were not impressed. Neither was I. My fingers turned yellow from the aphid guts. But the problem was quickly and easily under control.

I routinely check the squash plants for signs of squash bugs. Now I know to also look for signs of aphids. I have seen a few more since finding the masses on that single leaf, so I just keep cleaning them up. I have been really lucky and haven’t had even one squash bug yet this year. Let’s hope it stays that way.

Speaking of zucchini. The single plant is cranking them out again. I’ve picked several this week and there are more that will need to be picked soon.

The peppers are really starting to look good. There’s even some color coming to the massive red bell pepper and some of the tomatoes. The poblano plant hasn’t produced any peppers yet, but it’s over 4 feet tall now. I had some tall pepper plants in Utah, but I don’t think I ever had one this tall. It’s pretty exciting, but I would definitely trade the height for some peppers.

There are a few eggplants growing now. That plant is really looking good. I think it’s the healthiest eggplant I have ever grown. I blame the drip system and the regular watering schedule. I’m definitely going to do a drip system ever year from now on. It’s just so easy and seems to really make a difference.

The herbs out front continue to grow like crazy. I trim them back each week, but we can’t use everything we harvest… and that’s a problem that will only get worse with time. I’m not complaining. Charmaine makes some of the most amazing purple pesto sauces with our purple basil.

We installed tomato cages this week, which turned out to be a good thing because it has been really windy. Still, some of these tomato plants are monsters that can’t be contained by these tiny cages. We should have installed the cages much sooner, of course, but it’s still good to have them now.