Hope everyone's summer gardening is going well! Ours has been good so far - lots of berries, the corn is all harvested, more cucumbers than we know what to do with, etc. Just waiting on more okra, tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, zukes, cukes, pumpkins and melons. Oh, and more beans. Oh! Sunflower seeds, too! :)

Anyways, need some help identifying a flower (weed?) and a couple bugs. Below should be a link to the photobucket album (I hope). But if not, I'll try to describe:

Flowers - Purple, 'bout 2" in diameter, several (50 maybe?) thin petals, with a yellow center (looks like a firework, I guess). They grow on vines, and have tendrils that coil around things, similar to other stuff that likes to climb. It has a green fleshy fruit/seed pod that is spongy, and almost hollow inside.

Bugs - Hanging out on our sunflowers! Lots of bees of various kinds, but two that I don't recognize. The ones pictured are black, and look like scarabs / beetles. About an inch long on the big one, and they have really thick back legs. The other one (not pictured - plentiful usually, but camera shy it appears) is a light brown beetle. An inch or less long, and slender. Looks like a "click bug", but isn't. Stubborn, not aggressive - kinda have to really force them off the flower. They hang out on the flower part, the black ones hang out on the stems near the top.

The bugs / flowers aren't bothering anything, just kinda curious as to what they are... And there really is no better place to ask. :)

Thanks everyone!

-John

Flowers & bugs!