Time for a Friendly Garden Update

Finally, it seems like things are starting to grow!  Even though I don't have any red tomatoes yet, I finally see the promise of harvest.

My artichoke plant has just skyrocketed.  I have somewhere around a dozen artichokes growing!

I think the center artichoke is about needing to be harvested.  It's hard to know, not ever having grown artichokes before, but everything I read says to harvest while before they open up too much.  (Artichokes belong to the thistle family, and the artichoke itself is the flower.)

My poor green beans need to be harvested.  The plants haven't really thrived where I planted them--I'll be looking for a new location next time around.

The corn is still growing strong, and is finally developing fruit as well:

I have one fat cucumber...how do you know when to pick these things?  Do they just keep growing forever?

Here's my biggest bell pepper, it's maybe 2" in diameter.  Purty cute.

And lastly my tomatoes...the Roma tomatoes seem to be doing the best as far as the actual fruit goes:

And my heirloom tomatoes have finally decided to show some fruit as well.  I have three varieties of heirlooms: Black Krim, Mr. Stripey, and Pineapple.  The Black Krim has had a bit of a hard time getting established, although there is one little tomato on it finally (no pictures of that one, sorry).  The Mr. Stripey seems to be doing well all around.  Here's some of the little tomatoes on it right now:

The Pineapple variety is doing pretty good, although the plant itself has a couple of issues.  The baby tomatoes are sure cute though:

My peas are mostly sun-scorched (need to find a shadier place for those little guys) and I don't have any melons growing yet.  All in good time, the weather here is still solidly in the low to mid 70s.  I do have some blueberries ripening that the critters haven't seemed to have discovered yet...unlike the strawberries which I am apparently growing for the exclusive enjoyment of squirrels.