Tomatoes and ground cherries starting hardening off

Today was just 30 minutes in full shade.

Will do the usual very gradual hardening off, which as of this year entails NOT going back upstairs under lights, just coming inside on the kitchen table when not outside.

Finally enough ground cherries for a pie (slow due to rat) -- aphid damage minimal

The aphid thing is gross, but not horrible, minimal impact to the harvest.

The larger impact is the rat who, out of all the things in the garden, seems interested only in ground cherries and sunflower seeds (rather from bird feeder or from sunflower plants themselves).  Oh and s/he also took a bite here and there from a couple of tomatoes that I didn't pick soon enough.

Aphids inside ground cherry husks!!! But they seem to be ok?

I had been noticing that the ground cherry plants still look healthy and strong after having noticed aphids on the ground cherry plants on July 4th.  I also noticed some lady bug larvae on the ground cherries recently.

Well today I noticed that the inside of some of the husks look dirty -- you can see it through from the outside of the husk.  Opened one up and...  aphid poop and some aphids (mostly deceased?)!!

Sigh!!

They're in a bunch of husks, but a bunch of husks look fine.

The good thing is that the cherries inside the affected husks actually look fine.  So, maybe will just need to give them a good rinse, rather than chuck all of the affected husks.

Insect update (going well, no big issues)

- Cucumber beetles:  Finding several every day, mostly on cucumbers, occasionally on zucchini/rondes, but numbers aren't overwhelming, and plants don't seem to be suffering.

- Japanese beetles:  Finding one or two every few days, pretty much only on the zinnias.  

- Squash vine borer:  Finding occasional eggs.

- Aphids:  So far the aphids I've seen on the cucumbers, carrots, and ground cherries don't seem to have done any damage so I haven't been paying much attention.

Aphids on ground cherries and a zinnia!!!!!

The aphids on the ground cherries are multi-colour -- some are green, some red, some yellow.  Not a big infestation yet, but all the ground cherries have some -- even the volunteer at the south end of the central bed.  Removed a few leaves with many red aphids on them but otherwise didn't do anything.

Also a bunch of aphids on one stem of the zinnia behind the cucumbers.  My guess is the aphids that were on the cucumbers (I occasionally still see some on the cukes but not many/often) shifted over to the zinnia.  I cut off that stem.