Giant Sunflowers and keeping mice out of my garden

I'm sorry I haven't written sooner, but I've been very busy at work. But that hasn't kept me out of my garden. Here's what's happened so far this summer:

My sunflowers are now 12-14 feet tall. I've never seen such large sunflowers. I actually harvested some seeds and ate them. Have you ever harvested sunflower seeds?
It's actually kind of gross. First of all, if you are organic, as I am, there are these teeny red mite like bugs that live in the head of the sunflower. I took a high powered sprayer and blasted the head to get rid of the bugs. Then I let it dry in the sun for a day. When it was dry and bug free, I removed the seeds. Once they were removed I put them on a pan and let them further dry in the sun. My husband said that all the work I put in wasn't worth it. But where else can you get organic sunflower seeds?

Now for the rest of the garden. Mice kept eating my melon plants (and my pepper plant) down to nothing overnight. Afraid that I wouldn't get ANY harvest from my hard work, I did two things: First I put an electronic mouse trap in the garden, and I've been collecting little dead bodies every week. And second, my husband made me four little "cages" to put around my plants. These worked great until I went on vacation and the zapper trap broke, and a mouse dug underneath the cage and ate an entire plant! Those darn mice!

Anyway, one of the cassabananas is doing well (I have three) and I'm hoping that I'll get flowers and fruit sometime this summer. I know, it's late so I might not get any. I did get some ground cherry flowers and I'm hoping that I'll be able to harvest some in a few weeks. I've never tasted them before.

Anyway that's the update. Sorry it's short, but I have to get back to work!

Happy Gardening!