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.