first of all -- we have a cricket!







second of all, how crazy is this. this squashmelonpumpkingourd blossom grew straight through a leaf!







i never saw anything like that happen before. this weather -- the heat, the humidity -- we are so screwed. everything's growing SO fast and so big.






here's the same flower from the underside.

i wish i had done indigo this year; i miss growing it. maybe next year.




here is a big female flower. it was so hard to tell -- was the flower just about to open, or had it opened already and was it just a bit wilted? i climbed up onto the planter and did a little fertility treatment just to be safe. there was a bug inside the flower already so maybe we will get lucky.




ripley has been listening to her friend pasquale talk about how delicious squash blossoms are, and she has been eating a lot of them. this one, in fact, is the one i had chosen to father the large round thing above. ripley stole it while i was photographing the cricket.