Every year, we’ve been saving sunflower seeds to replant. And every year, I say that we should cut down the sunflowers early and till it back into the earth as a “green manure” to replenish the soil.  But then, who has the heart to cut down such a happy explosion of flowers? These flowers divide two types of dry corn, which would other wise cross pollinate. The ones here are a crossed variety that occurred last year when I planted red corn next to multicolor corn. The result was a beautifully blended striated corn. Who knew the seeds are so vigorous and would turn into these strong plants?

These are a purple okra plant. Hard to know if colorful food plants were always colorful, but were bred out because of demand for uniformity, or if market growers know that a colorful display is good for business. The only way for me to know is, save the seeds, and regrow them next year.

Cucumbers left and right, hidden beneath all that foliage.

Succession planting for continuous crops. The four short rows are carrots, string beans, beets, and more zucchini. I managed to maul a partial row of string beans this weekend, trying to avoid tractoring over zucchini leaves. Now that I think about it, does one ever NEED more zucchini plants?