They grow up so fast. It seems only last week we were headed out of town and wondering if the artichoke plant would even survive a week without us. Apparently there was no need for concern. We got home from a quick trip to Oceanside and Sequoia NP to find our burly artichoke plant was getting ready to bloom. We decided to harvest a few artichokes before they turned into huge purple flowers, but I have to admit I’m curious to know what they would look like if we did let one or two go all the way. There are still plenty more on the monster plant, so maybe we’ll do that towards summer. But right now it’s time to eat some organic artichokes from our garden.

We took a few weeks to visit Peru and when we got back the garden was in pretty bad shape. There were ants herding aphids around to almost every leaf of the zucchini plant, which also seems to be suffering from some kind of powdery mildew. Tomatoes had been picked, half eaten by squirrels or raccoons, laying to the side of the plants being devoured by swarms of ants. The leaves of some tomato plants were turning black. Others had half-eaten tomatoes still on the plant. There were even some bell peppers that had been sampled by some varmints. I wasn’t sure if the sampling was done by squirrels (we have tons of them, but they haven’t ever eaten anything before) or raccoons (I have seen one or two in the yard earlier in the year) or possums or rats or something combination of those or something else completely. But I was sure about one thing… it wasn’t pretty.

The good news is that the jalapeno peppers are looking great. They looked so great that I picked a bunch of them. They have some good color to them now, which means they have some sweetness and vitamin C now. They also have a lot of stress marks and striations, which usually means they’ve picked up some good heat. I can hardly wait for Charmaine to put these into her famous jalapeno cheddar bread. Mmmm!

The poblano pepper plant is also doing well. It’s almost exactly six feet tall now, which is so amazing, but it’s also starting to produce actual peppers. That’s what I’m really happy about. I just hope they have enough time to mature before it starts to get cold. Does it get cold in San Jose? I guess we’ll find out as time goes on.

The other good news is that there are still a ton of un-touched tomatoes. I picked about 20 that looked ripe. Despite the issues with aphids and leaf mildew, the zucchini plant is still cranking them out. I picked two huge zucchinis today. And the eggplant is still going like mad. It’s about 5 feet tall and has 5 or 6 good eggplants growing. I’m so impressed!

I’m heading to San Diego for the long weekend, so I’m not sure what to do with all the produce I picked today. Maybe the neighbors are hungry?

We seem to have at least something from the garden every night, and there’s usually zucchini in the mix. A few nights this week Charmaine grilled up some jalapeños with the zucchini. That’s a great combination. We repeated it a couple times. We also picked the huge monster bell pepper. It was way bigger than the giant bells we bought at the store. I took a picture with it propped up against a soda can for perspective. I think it’s the biggest one we’ve ever grown.

The rest of the garden continues to do what it’s been doing. The zucchini plant is going crazy, but it’s also starting to get some yellow spots on its leaves, as if the aphids have returned… but I can’t ever find any. It’s also getting some gray spots on some leaves, as if it’s getting sprayed by sprinklers, but I don’t think it is. Maybe there’s some overspray from a neighbor? I don’t know.

The tomato plants that had the disease early on are starting to get thicker main stalks, but they haven’t grown tall; they haven’t blossomed; and they still look terrible. Charmaine says I should just yank them out and use their water elsewhere. She’s probably right.

The poblano pepper plant keeps getting taller and taller, in constant bloom, but there’s never a pepper. It’s actually two different plants, so I keep thinking it should easily pollinate itself, but I continue to be wrong. The rest of the peppers are producing like mad. We pulled in one of the larger eggplants before another raccoon found it. The tomatoes are looking great. Some of the Cherokee Purple tomatoes are starting to get some color. It’s really fun.

The herbs are all doing well, with the slight exception of the cilantro. It just really wants to go to seed. No matter how far I cut it back, it blooms within just a few days. I think at this point I’m just going to let it go and see what happens. Hopefully it at least builds its base. All the other herbs are really doing great. I think I’m starting to get a better understanding of manual exposure on the camera, so hopefully my pictures will start to improve over the next few weeks.

This is a great time to have a garden. It’s the time when everything you planted is starting to produce real things (not just zucchini). We picked one of the Jalapeño peppers and used it in the salsa we made this week. It was so good. The herbs are rocking. We picked 5 or 6 zucchini this week and wound up giving some away. Who eats that much zucchini every week? Not me. Some of the tomatoes are really bright red and I can hardly stop myself from picking them right now. The giant red bell pepper has some serious color now. Even the Armenian Cucumber plant has started to produce little cucumber-shaped melons. Really, the only thing that hasn’t produced is the Poblano pepper plant, but I haven’t given up on it yet.

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.