how to list all custom post types in current category archive

Hi guys and gals, couldn’t find this elsewhere.

I’ve got a site that is using category.php to list custom post types in that category.

For example, my categories structure is like this:

– fruit
— apples
— red
— orange
— yellow
— big
— small
— bananas
— red
— orange
— yellow
— big
— small

– veggies
— squash
— red
— orange
— yellow
— big
— small
— carrots
— red
— orange
— yellow
— big
— small

And my custom post types are like this:
– red
– green
– big
– small

All food types share the same set of custom post types (food attributes). What I’m trying to do is direct people toward my second-level category archives (e.g. Carrots) and list the (custom post type) attributes in that category.

Here’s what I’m using now:

<?php
		$taxonomy = 'category';
		$param_type = 'category__in';
		$cat_id = get_query_var('cat');
		$term_args=array(
		  'orderby' => 'slug',
		  'order' => 'ASC',
		  'child_of' => $cat_id
		);
		$terms = get_terms($taxonomy,$term_args);
		if ($terms) {
		  foreach( $terms as $term ) {
		    $args=array(
		      "$param_type" => array($term->term_id),
		      'post_type' => 'big',
		      'post_status' => 'publish',
		      'posts_per_page' => -1,
		      'caller_get_posts'=> 1
		      );
		    $big = null;
		    $big = new WP_Query($args);
		    $get_cat_name = get_cat_name($cat_id);
		    $current_post_date = get_the_date();
		    if( $get_involved->have_posts() ) {
		      $cat = get_query_var('cat');
		      while ($big->have_posts()) : $big->the_post(); ?>

		       <?php endwhile; } } wp_reset_query(); ?>
	<?php } ?>

This has been assembled by a lot of Googling and cut-n-pasting. I’m no PHP guru, but I know a bit.

My problem right now is that I have to categorize each custom post into a ‘red, orange, yellow, big, small’ category to get it to show in the category archive.

What I WANT to do is to get rid of all 3rd level category archives and only categorize the custom post types into the 2nd-level categories (e.g. fruits, veggies).

Any help greatly appreciated!