First tomato harvest!

Picked our first tomatoes of the season today--delicious yellow cherries.

First caterpillar sighting!

Just found our first caterpillar on one of the milkweed plants.  I'm hopeful that it is a little monarch since it looks striped black and white.  I've just been looking for chewed up areas on the leaves; are there any other telltale signs to look for?

Siamese twin sunflower?

I've never seen anything like it, but when my sunflowers came into bloom this week, one of them was double-sided (see image above).  At first I thought it was just two blooms that were really close to one another, but upon closer examination, I realized they were actually fused together.  Is this common with sunflowers, or any other flower, for that matter, or is this just some sort of genetic aberration.  Any insight on this would be much appreciated.  Thanks!

July 2014 Garden Update and Inspiration for Next Year

Butterfly Garden

Sunflowers are growing like crazy, probably about 6.5 feet now.  Just added a top dressing of additional Mel's Mix soil and sprinkled some free coffee ground compost thanks to Starbucks.  Can't wait for all the flowers to be in bloom; we've had a few butterfly sightings, but not too many yet.  We officially registered the garden as a "Monarch Weigh Station" through the Monarch Watch website.  I thought that would be an added incentive to maintain and continue to expand the butterfly garden over the years.  

With the success of the sunflowers, I started thinking ahead to next year and what we might grown when I came across the idea of creating a "sunflower house", basically a little shelter created by sunflowers where little ones can sit out of the sun (see Sample at savvy housekeeping).  That seemed like something my three year old would love, as she already likes playing hide and seek with the regular cluster of sunflowers. 

If that goes well, perhaps in another two years, might try making a more permanent structure like willow hut as seen on Earth Play.

Veggie garden is doing well.  Had to restake the tomatoes; next year I'm going to try and experiment with trimming all the side branches so that they don't get so wild.  Still battling with the bunnies who have effectively decimated the strawberry plants :(.