I've never had success with sunflowers before.....UNTIL NOW!!!! They are loving this heat.
I planted just a small area, approximately 2 square feet of space, because I didn't expect much. Squirrels, birds, or underwatering usually due them in before they get a chance to sprout. This year, with a bit of wet Spring weather at just the right time, they found their time to shine. I wish I knew the variety. I know it's a dwarf. My computer got a virus, and everything was deleted. I lost all my old photos and gardening logs for the last two years. This is why I need to start relying on paper records again....just in case. I'm glad I at least have this journal.
A Golden Acre head of cabbage that I harvested last week. It made a delicious sweet and sour slaw.Three Spirit pumpkins at different maturities. A hybrid, bush pumpkin that is doing well despite the extreme, unrelenting heatwave.There's no way that this one is lasting until Halloween, so I'll be freezing some pumpkin puree sometime soon. I don't regret planting early. I had poor results in past season due to SVBs. This season I have at least 4 pumpkins on this plant. No SVBs. I hope I didn't just jinx myself. Maybe I'll get lucky enough to have one still around for Halloween.Mucho Nacho jalapeno peppers. Mexican, anyone?

This morning I decided to bag some blossoms. I used bridal tulle circles to cover the blossoms. A bagged blossom. The clothespins are holding the "bags" together and their weight is supported by clipping them over the cages. I will remove the bags once I see tomatoes forming.
Fused tomato stems on my Lucky Cross tomato plant.
Copra and Red Zeppelin onions starting to bulb up.
Reliance Grapes
Blueray Blueberry
Newly expanded front garden. The entire middle portion was grass in the beginning of the season. Now it is filled with marigolds, dwarf sunflowers, lots of carrots, and other assorted annuals as fillers.
Scarlet Oklahoma Red Zinnia
Jacob Kline Monarda
Purple Coneflower

Todays Harvest and More

My 2 year old daughter and I picked these tomatoes this morning. A combination of Box Car Willies, Celebrity, Cherokee Green, and Sun Golds. As you can see, my daughter can't keep her hands off of them. She ate almost half of these shortly after taking this picture. That's my girl!
"Shell" garden- Blue Lake pole beans along the walls, Salad Bush cukes, a volunteer marigold, and th remainder of my onion plants.

The corn started to tassel, but there were no ears on the stalks. I wasn't sure where the corn pops up. Now I know. There are two ears developing from between the leaves and stalk. Pretty cool.

Below are my sunflowers. Looks like something really finds the leaves tasty.

Most of my onion harvest. I think I pulled some of them too soon. The leaves had fallen over and had some yellowing on the tips. Oops. This was my first season growing onions, so I'm still learning.

Beauty and Sadness.

Golden Acre Cabbage
Despite being planted very late in the season, long periods of drought, high heat, and high humidity this cabbage is still developing a nice head.
Spirit Pumpkins
Sadly, vine borers have found my two pumpkin plants. I had three nice pumpkins developing on them. Looks like we'll be buying Jack O Lantern pumpkins again this season.

Red Norland Potatoes

I dumped my three gallon container in which I planted two small seed potatoes.

The harvest. The largest is about that size of a golf ball.

Spicebush Swallowtail on Royal Red butterfly bush.

Vanilla Ice sunflowers are opening.

Tiger Swallowtail on Royal Red butterfly bush.

Join the Great Sunflower Project

Check out my favorite gardening sites. One of which is for the Great Sunflower Project. You can participate for free! All you need is a half an hour and one of the plants on their list. Sit and observe how many bees visit for a half and hour and report back with your data. They have a log for you to print out to keep track of the number of visits by different types of bees, the temperature, time of day, etc. This would be a great activity to do with your children. My son and I are participating for the first time this year. They will even put you on a mailing list for Lemon Queen sunflower seeds (the main plant they would like you to observe if possible). Although the mailing of seeds may be done for this season, you can still participate by using other plants. Check out their website and provide them information about the bees where you live.