Monday, July 28, 2008

More Plant Life...

Our first sunflowers have finally bloomed! I don't know if you can tell how incredibly tall this one is but I took this picture while I was standing beside it. I think that it's at least 7 feet tall. I didn't think that this variety was supposed to get that tall, I thought it was more like 5-6 feet. But this is the one that Halle planted before vacation.




And here it is with me standing on the kids slide. See Trav grilling in the background? We had yummy basil garlic burgers harvested from the basil plants you see next to Trav.
Here's the sunflower that Chloe planted. It's the only one that sprouted out of all the seeds she planted. And I'm really surprised this one did considering that the ground it's planted in has plastic under it and really crummy soil. It seems to be doing fine though. The flower is just a bit taller than I am. I wish I could have gotten a good picture of whatever little critter was busy gathering pollen. His little legs were completely covered in the yellow stuff and it was very cute. Oh, and I noticed it just as we were pulling out of the driveway this morning. I had to put the car back in drive and pull up so that Chloe could see it and she was *very* excited. And she declared that she would be a gardener forever and ever. Oh, and on another note, the little blue flowers that I couldn't remember what they were called?They're forget-me-nots, ha! I think I rolled my eyes at myself when I figured it out.
Chloe flipped a little when she saw this butterfly yesterday. I had to kind of chase it around the plants hoping to get a good shot.
The pumpkin plant is still blooming although these are all guys. Yep, the long stems are males- bummer. The females are on short stems with little baby pumpkins at the base. I'm still really hoping that this turns out well. There are probably 50 blooms on this plant though and some of them have to be girls, right?

7 comments:

Mary said...

Fun stuff. I love Chloe's passion...I'm confident that she would become an excellent gardener.

Anonymous said...

What?! No pictures of the garlic basil burgers?! Definitely some of the best homemade burgers I've ever had. And you were the one most responsible for their utter deliciousness. :)

-travis

Amy Button said...

Oh, sorry honey. I don't think of a burger as a beautiful picture. Probably because I'm not a big carnivore like you and Amanda are, bless your little hearts. ;)

Anonymous said...

I know you won't mention this, but I have to. Halle's sunflower is seven feet, five inches tall! Chloe and I just measured it last night. :)

-travis

Christy said...

Wow! I love the sunflowers!

Forever Amber said...

I love sunflowers, but just a word of advice from my own experience growing them :) We grew a gazillion of them at one time one of the first summer's in my house and they were so incredible tall, big, bright, and beautiful. I loved them. Then we got chiggers that summer! YUCK!!!! A neighbor told me that we likely got them from the sunflowers, because (as he claimed) chiggers love sunflowers. Just beware and if you feel any itchin' in all the wrong places your sunflowers might have attracted the same little critters that ours did :( The remedy in case you get them is clear nail polish. Now you're wiser than I was when I had my encounter with the unseen bug! :)

Amy Button said...

Thanks for the advice. I don't have a bunch, just 6 plants so hopefully we'll remain chigger free :) I hate those things!