Baby blossoms and fruit

It's no accident that babies are so precious.  When I step on the trailing tendril of a watermelon arm, I gasp, "oh, I'm so sorry!"  Watermelon leaves are the prettiest: they have long spotted fingers that match their fruit skins, how very clever.  And tiny pale yellow flowers - no hint of the giant fruit they are crafting inside!

Honeybee is making this cucumber very, very happy right now.  You can tell the honeybees by their honey-colored stripes and their soft buzz.  Wasps and other scary insects have much more aggressive brrrrrr sounds.

 I think it is obvious that God made baby animals and baby plants precious on purpose.  I cringe when I read seed-pack instructions to "thin".  What!?  You want me to destroy the babies?!  I ignore the instructions and give each seed its space.  It is in my guts to protect the babies, I lift them up and set dry straw underneath.  They are little treasures.

The cantaloupe's are winning for largest fruit so far - see the striped ball?  It's pretending to be a watermelon.  It better not be a waterloupe - I am wary of cross-pollinating.

Baby Winter Squash - this plant is a gift from grandma - it says "bonbon" on its tag,  Hmmm, a cross between bonbons and giant squash?!  How can that be? Intriguing.

I planted more zuchinni this year than ever in my life (well, that's true for every plant in the garden - this is biggest-ever gardening).  My childhood memories of zuchinni are four.  First, I hated them, yuck, gross, sliced and stewed with tomatoes and onion, blech.  Second, my sweet Grandma Lucille called them zuchskeeny (sound it out and chuckle like we did) and I adored her.  Third, they were very poky plants that scratched my arms and grew shockingly fast.  Fourth, my charming little brother could take a wagon-full down the block and return from his door-to-door with a winsome grin and empty wagon.  Now I am a grown up and I know the truth: zuchinni are more delicious than butter.  Coincidentally, they are quite tasty IN butter.

These baby zuchinni made me jump for joy.

Last year I learned that there are boy and girl blossoms - they are different!  They are also perfect giant blossoms to dissect for a botany lesson, we did that.  Bitty purple green bean blooms would be no good for dissection.

Today I watered each happy mound: zuchinni, spaghetti squash, cantaloupe, winter squash, blonde cucumber, pickling cucumber, watermelon.  I should count how many, I bet there are 40 mounds.  See three of the lacy watermelon mounds there behind my dirty dog Jenny.  She romped (like a lunatic racing back and forth - she is child-like in her obsession with splashing mud) in the trickle of a creek while I talked to the honeybees.