Fall gardening: mystery plants and zombie artichokes-- how appropriate for October!

I am loving gardening in the fall! I actually didn't even know fall was such a fantastic time to garden until this year. We all know spring is considered the season to be out working in the yard but fall has just been a time where I've found myself being more motivated and wanting to spend lots of time outside so it's a perfect time to be gardening.

We've been working on the backyard this season and we started by replanting the veggie garden. I ripped out all the spring/summer plants and now have fabulous fall veggies, including broccoli, cabbage, sugar snap peas, mint, rosemary, brussels sprouts, spinach and:

Mystery plants
So last season we ended up with a million squash because our compost didn't get hot enough to kill the seeds, well this season we have new mystery plants, can you identify them?

We have about seven of them in the yard. I hope they are some mystery veggie but seriously at this point I'm wondering if they are just non-flowering weeds that need to be pulled. Any ideas? Let me know!

Zombie artichokes
Last May Ryan's mom gave us artichoke seedlings (is that what they are called? oh well) and we planted them. We had been told that the Valley is too hot to grow artichokes but I figured if Mary could get them to grow in Red Bluff we could make them work here. Sure enough I planted five and they slowly died. One by one they were taken out by the summer heat. One plant held on for months but come August when it had just one leaf left I figured it was a lost cause. But in September our evenings started cooling down and that one little plant that had held on made a comeback. And it wasn't just that plant either, two of the other artichoke plants came back from the dead. Now we have three thriving plants. Incredible! I don't know if we'll get any actual artichokes from them before the cold gets 'em but it's pretty neat to watch them grow.

Beyond the veggies we've got new vines (carolina jessamine) on the fence and five new trees too! Four against the back alley fence, in the hopes that they will eventually create a screen for the backyard, and a new flowering pear. We'll post pics as they grow!