Yard & Garden Pictures June 9 2015

I found this little critter wandering around on a sunflower leaf this morning and thought this was something worth sharing 'with the whole class' as it were.  Quotation marks for emphasis, take that Weird Al!  Anyway, here are 3 of the pictures of this creature, if anyone happens to know what it is please feel free to comment below the blog so the rest of us can find out too!

Here are a few shots from the Indigo Rose Tomato we have growing on the dead fig tree in the front yard.  I am so impressed with the intense growth on these plants since they were transplanted.  I was sure they were going to die as tragically as the squash had earlier but, thankfully, they proved me wrong!  How awesome is that deep purple color forming on the tomato skins?  I love it!

Speaking of purple here are a couple shots of the Little Blue pepper plant that's growing in the coffee can setup.  Again I have to ask, how awesome is that purple?!?  I like to eat and grow foods with as much color as I can but I really do seem to be focused on the purple plants this year.  I guess that means I get to make Purple Pickled Peppers later on.  Not only will that taste great, it's fun to say.  Give it a try, Purple Pickled Peppers ...

Last year I was lucky enough to receive some mail from all the way down in Australia from a man I hope we all know by now!  Rob, from RobBobs Backyard Farming, sent me some seeds from his Mouse Melons and I was killing myself with the wait to get started with these.  He's right, they take a little while to get started but once they decided it's time to grow ... wow!  Give them something to climb, personally I'm looking around for a cargo net or something similar, then stand back and you can almost watch them grow.  These ones are getting a little too friendly with the peppers next door so they will be getting a trellis of some sort soon ....

Finally we get to the Sunflower that sent me into the yard with a camera this morning in the first place.  This beauty is the first open sunflower in our gardens and to the best of my knowledge it's the first in the neighborhood as well.  I thought the ones growing in the compost heap would be first because they get all that extra heat & moisture but this one gets that little bit more direct sunlight.  It just goes to show you never can tell how things will grow in the garden on any given year!