Life is a bowl of raspberries when you have magic beans!

Our raspberries are so happy now on the south side of the embankment, they are producing whole bowls full of raspberries each day. Rather small bowls, but still a bit improvement from last year when we were each getting a quarter of a raspberry. We are also harvesting our first beans. The girls were not too eager to try the purple beans, but were excited to learn that they turn green when boiled. Magic beans!
My flower beds have become infested with these black and red caterpillars. I am not sure if they are poisonous, or what they eat, but suspect they are up to no good, so I have been gathering them up with disposable chopsticks each morning and dropping them in the river.
Feeling blue.... I planted cornflowers and campanula seeds in all different colors, but only the blue and purple actually grew, so my south flowerbed is a little monotone.
Some of the more colorful flowers are starting to revive in the north flower bed now that that the daffodil leaves have been removed.
First lily...

pollinating pumpkins

M pollinated our first pumpkin flower this morning! It is one of the Cinderella pumpkins. Of course, the timing is all wrong because I want them for Halloween, but exciting nevertheless. They say the best way to store pumpkins is in cool, low humidity conditions. If a place with such conditions existed in Gifu in the summer, that is where I would like to be stored as well! Both the pumpkins and I are out of luck.

Lily
The annuals are starting to spread out and cover the fading bulb foliage...
We have 3 baby eggplants.

fall?

I thought cosmos were supposed to bloom in late summer/fall, but apparently this one is confused. I love cosmos, so would be happy if they bloom from now till fall.
Finally some of the flowers in the flower bed closest to the house (NE bed) have started to bloom. This is where the bulbs are, and time between irises and lilies is a bit barren.
More nasturtium.
The SE flower bed is doing pretty well, but I have a bit of a gaping hole in the center that I have to think about. I'm hoping it will look better when the balloon flowers and gladioli start blooming. One Turkish balloon flower (? Turuko kikyo) seems to have survived the winter, hurrah! I love them.
I am still hoping for id on this blue flower which I love.
Reisentraube cherry tomato has zillions of blossoms in each cluster. If these all turn into mini tomatoes we will be in tomato heaven.
Strawberries are plugging along. Down to only 10 or so a day from a peak of 20. Not bad considering they are just in an out of the way corner, half under mud when it rains. They are to the right of the neighbor's garden tool shed in the photo below. Next year we should look into putting down some rice stalks or something for them to lie on.
An view from the girls' bedroom. The lawn has greened up, but the most trodden patches don't really get a chance to grow in .

I planted nasturtiums by the daffodils yesterday. I am hoping they grow quickly to disguise the daffodil leaves.














Last year our irises bloomed one color at a time. This year they seem to be coming together, which is nice.














white too















baby carrots are starting to get real leaves
















mystery vine, cucumber? zucchini? pumpkin? sprouted from one of our patches dh made ready for lettuce