Collected some Balsam seed today. The pods are so nifty, but you would have to actually pop one to know how nifty they are. It's almost like they're spring loaded - you put pressure on them and they just curl right up with a pretty strong force behind them. If i had some kids around they would be popping them all day.

Anyway, here's what they look like:
I always have a hard time deciding when to pull a pod off something but in this case it's pretty evident. if the seeds are still green than it's a no-go.

strange (eggs?) on tomato leaf underside

And then while pruning a bit in the center of my tomato plants (for better air circulation b/c i think i planted them too close) i found these three things attached to a tomato leaf. I have no idea what they are. I'm guessing some sort of bug egg? but they got removed and discarded. I would love to know what they are though...










and speaking of tomatoes... we've been eating them for a little while now and they came out pretty fantastic according to everyone whos tried them. i guess nothing beats home-grown. I pull blushing ones off pretty much every other day from the bush. And here are some in varying degrees of "red-i-ness" (forgive me for the horrible pun).
These are all off the park's whopper bush.
Some of them were crowded out by the cage and branches so i think that accounts for the size difference maybe? Not too sure.

And the tomato bushes are growing out of control. I tried to put some stakes and ran some yarn around them in effort to contain them... i didn't expect them to grow so HUGE. I put 3 bushes there together and it was just not enough space.They grow over the okra a shade them out so i had to move some of the okra plantings over a bit just so the poor guys could get some more sun!






The okra are getting a lot of aphids on the underside of the leaves and they're destroying the tiny developing pods. I sprayed a diluted solution of dish soap on them (i know, shame on me for not using the organic, happy stuff) to try to get rid of them. It seems like the soap hurts some plants and not others though b/c i used it on the verbascum and they did not like it at all, but the hibiscus took to it just fine. I only shot it on one okra plant so i'll see how it reacts to it.