Harvest Spinach, Plant Sunflowers

This morning I had a lot of cleaning up to do on the deck after yesterday's rain and wind, but it's beautiful out. Hopefully the storm got rid of the pollen - my allergies have been terrible this week. The new "Easy Does It" rose is gorgeous - worth every penny so far - and I'm thinking next year I should do a warm tone palette. It could also make a lovely wedding color scheme. The one peony is getting ready to open which makes me very excited! Today I harvested the rest of the spinach (probably should have done it last week) and repurposed that hanging basket for the strawflowers I pulled out of the crowded big pot. I also dug up one of the beets and it looked pretty good but only about 1" in diameter so I'm going to leave those in for a little while longer. I planted the sunflower seeds - Red Sun, Chianti Hybrid and Strawberry Blond Hybrid - along the south side of the house. I'm not very confidant about those because it's pretty grassy and I wasn't very careful in planting but I hope to have at least a few blooms. The phlox are doing well in the original window box I planted. I still don't know where to but the luffa or the butternut squash. I really got too aggressive in seed ordering. I think I'm going to have to give the south facing steps off the deck over to pots completely - they already house dahlias, peas, beets, echinacea and the new rose. I need to remember to bring the big pot from home that housed last year's hibiscus. I finally put the only surviving Red Popper pepper in a pot, we'll see how it does. The seedling does not look very healthy. I also need to come up with another hanging basket to grow the Tumbling Tom yellow tomatoes... lots to do!