Sunflowers!

Back in June I mentioned in one of my posts that we weren't going to plant a vegetable garden this year. Instead, we planted a variety of sunflowers. Well, they're finally starting to bloom, so I thought I'd share a few pictures.

This guy is the tallest of the bunch so far, and it's a dark red/purpley color. Not your typical sunflower color! There are several buds on the stalk, but this one is the most open. The lighting isn't very good on the second picture -- the sun was really bright that afternoon -- but it does give you a good idea of the color.

Here's another unusual sunflower color. This variety is also much smaller and shorter than what I usually think of as a sunflower. It also seems to have a smaller center in relation to the size of the petals. If I saw this growing wild, I don't think I'd even know it is a sunflower; it reminds me of a daisy. But I love the delicate, pale yellow petals.

This one was actually the first sunflower to bloom, and it's got that bright yellow color. But it's tiny! You can't tell in this picture, but this flower can't be more than two feet tall.

Just for fun, here is the whole sunflower patch. It's maybe not as full as the picture I had in my head, but we had a pretty good crop. I think I may have accidentally pulled a few early on when I was weeding. Oops. Speaking of weeding, you should have seen the garden before I took this picture. The weeds were out. of. control. There is still a good bunch of weeds mixed in with the strawberries (conveniently not in the picture), but I could only tackle so much. Back to the sunflowers -- if you look closely, the flower closest to the bottom of the photo, a little to the right of center, is the tiny one in the last photo. The big, dark ones are the tallest ones in the back to the left. The light colored sunflower is somewhere in the middle toward the right side of the photo.

We do have a few other things growing in the garden, too. At the back of the garden we have a stretch of chain link fence. My sister planted some scarlet runner beans along the fence, and they're happily vining away and showing off their pretty red flowers.

The beans that she planted were ones that we grew and dried a couple of years ago. The beans that we planted at that time were from a company called Rancho Gordo, which produces and sells heirloom beans, especially those indigenous to the Americas. My sister wants to let these beans dry on the vine and then shell and cook them. Yum!

Here is a close-up of some of new little beans. Aren't they cute? We have quite a few large ones already, too. I just love the bright red flowers.

Our neighbor has planted cucumbers and some kind of squash just on the other side of the white fence. Apparently they really like our yard, though, because they have both found their way through the fence and are mingling with the sunflowers.

We were able to redirect the squash a bit so it's stretched along the white fence, and while I was doing that, I found this little tendril starting. I love all the fuzziness!

On the other side of the chain link fence, right along the alley, we have a little garden patch that is a bit out of control. Part of the craziness is weeds, of course, because they are everywhere, and this summer they are just stressing me out.

But another part of the craziness is marigolds. My sister had saved some marigold seeds from flowers we planted a few years ago, and for the heck of it we decided to plant them in that patch. They grew, and grew, and have kind of turned into bushes. These are a few of the marigold blooms.

Well, that's it from the garden for now. I'm hoping that in the next week or two we'll have more sunflowers open so the garden is full of color. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

I was going to include a few sunflower cards to continue the theme, but this post has gotten pretty long already. I'll save those for next time. Thanks for stopping by!