Summer is Here!

We, not officially, but its early June, and the temps are starting to creep into the 90s.  Most of my cool-weather plants a gone now except for a few small cabbages that are still hanging on.  The warm season plants I have are doing pretty well.  Here are those "volunteer" sunflowers.  They are huge now.  Here is my daughter Elizabeth next to one.  The plant is probably at least 9 feet tall now, and the leaves are huge.  Right below it is my sugar pie pumpkin plants, which are also doing real well and have almost totally filled that part of the yard now.

There are about 4 pumpkins growing on those vines now, and some more on the way. Here is one of them

Its quite a jungle in that part of the yard.  Once again, I made the mistake of underestimating how far the plants would spread.  I can hardly walk among them anymore.  Its quite  a task to walk among them without stepping on any vines.

My Rouge Vif D'etampes plants are doing really well too, and I have a very nice pumpkin growing on it too. Here is the big one:

These pumpkins are a different species than the Sugar Pies... these are C. Maxima.  When immature they are yellow but then turn a deep orange/red later. 

Here is a smaller one that just  was pollinated, and is starting to grow now.

Below is a picture of one of my ball zucchini plants.  You can see one of the zucchinis in the bottom of the pic.  Its a real good looking plant!

The acorn squash are doing OK too. I was hoping to have a few more squash by now.  So far I have 2 that are almost ripe, and a couple more that are getting there. The plants seem fairly healthy, but the vines are rather thin and small.  Now sure what's up with them.

I think I have some sort of mosaic virus among my plants.  I have  a ton of cucumber beetles flying around.  And I read they are carriers of the virus.  My pole beans have not been doing very well.  Many of the leaves are blotchy looking, and are curled up. The bean pods are small too.

Unfortunately my Hubbard squash vines have been showing many of the symptoms...  Mottled looking green/yellow leaves, curled up leaves.... But the vine are still growing like gangbusters.  So I have not had to heart to rip them out, since the plant seems to be able to deal with it somewhat.  What's been real sad is that I have lost all my squash in progress.  They have all grown a little, then turned yellow, and started rotting.  What a bummer.  I hope the plant stops aborting them.  I wonder if its the virus having an effect on it.

The German Chamomille is doing great still. Tons of flowers now.  We have been picking lots of them to dry for future tea.  We have also made some tea from the fresh flowers.  They have a great apple-like smell.  No wonder they call it "Manzanilla" in Spanish, which sounds like "manzana" which means apple.