Garden Flowers, Ripening Tomatoes, and Volunteers

I'm sure I have more recipes and gluten-free ideas to share, but lately I've mostly been thinking about my garden. I have tons of flowers now. This is my lemon cucumber:
My eggplants have been flowering nicely, but they don't seem to be getting fertilized. The flowers tend to just shrivel up and fall off. Do the bees find their downward-pointing flowers problematic? I'll start fertilizing them by hand soon using a small paintbrush. Last year this technique was responsible for granting me one whole eggplant! Perhaps this year I'll have better luck.My Sun Gold tomatoes are already starting to turn orange! This is really early for Portland.
Some of the cilantro I planted early has started to flower.I planted these calendula (marigold) flowers from seeds this year. I'm planning to harvest the seeds for planting next year.

I have several "volunteers" in my garden. They are either seeds blown in from a neighbor's yard, or seeds that were in my compost that sprang up. I'm not sure where this pansy came from, but I'm glad it's here. Did you know pansy flowers are edible? They are great in salad or as a striking garnish.

I'm not sure what these next voluteers are. I got the idea to post them to my blog from Jessie at Blog Schmog. Can you help me identify them? Perhaps this plant on the far left of the bed is a sunflower:



This one could be a pumpkin or squash. Any ideas?

If you have a good guess on my two mystery volunteers, please leave it in my comments!

Comments

Dave said…
Nice garden. It looks awesome.

We have Lemon Cucumbers too. We've got bees, luckily, so we've got some growing on the vine already.

That one volunteer looks like a sunflower to me too. I'm no expert, but the top squash looks like it's going to be a "bush" variety (maybe zuchini?) and the bottom does look more like pumpkin.
July 20, 2009 at 1:01 PM
Gina said…
Cool. Free sunflower! The last volunteer may even be something exotic like a decorative gourd. I put some of those in my compost last year. Fortunately I have room for it so I think I'll just wait and see! Thanks for the guesses.
July 20, 2009 at 4:06 PM
Rebecca said…
I'm not sure what your volunteers are. That squashy plant may actually be a flower. I had a similar plant at my old house and it just grew really big, sprouted a five-foot stalk, and flowered.

Once your cilantro goes to seed, collect the seeds and use them in Indian dishes--it's coriander. Delicious! If you have any left over, I'll be glad to take some off your hands.
July 22, 2009 at 11:18 AM
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