Growing Fast!

Considering just a couple of weeks ago my sunflowers and cucumbers looked like this:

I am blown away that they now look like this: 

I even have my very first actual flower!  And you can see the cucumbers are doing what I'd hoped & growing up the sunflowers like a trellis ... in fact they may be growing faster than the sunflowers themselves. 

The smaller cucumbers on the other side are creeping up fast too but haven't quite started to climb yet. 

When you peek in between you can see the little flowers that will soon become cucumbers!

Almost all of the sunflowers have buds waiting to open. I'm so curious what the ones that have more purple stems will look like.  The seed mixture I started with had yellow, red & white varieties.  I think the majority that survived are just standard yellow but a few of them have these purple tinted stems & veins. 

My first little yellow one.  I wonder how big it will get.  I guess I thought the bud itself would start out bigger before it opened up but it looks like they start small and grow from there.  

The cucumber leaves are about the same size as the sunflower leaves but a different shape if you look closely. 

My melon plant is starting to grow and spread out looking to climb as well.  I hope my plan to have it trail down the sides of the planter works!

The tomato that was larger than the rest remains the head of the pack, finally reaching the top of the cage. 

The two little tomatoes are still brewing and more flowers on it tell me more will be coming!

My biggest pepper plant still is tiny compared to that tomato plant, coming in just above the lowest ring on the cage but growing fast.  

My bean bushes are smaller but also seem happy and continue to grow. 

Funny how when I started seeds the cilantro is what went best first and now are the slowest.  They are finally starting to peek up sporadically in the area I used to sow more seeds.  

My basil is slowly coming along but all still small.  

Of course those that I bought as plants versus starting from seeds look much better.

The tomato, pepper & bean bed still looks sparse when viewed from a distance.

The sunflower & cucumber bed on the other hand is starting to give some privacy for us from the alley and you can barely see the ugly garbage cans!  

Of course my neighbors are already able to harvest from their plants since they got started right away but if things keep going this way I think I'll have some success!  And then as fall approaches I can do some lettuce and kale as well.   Sounds weird to be thinking that way but summer is more than 1/2 over already!