Mystery Squash June 11, 2009
The mystery squash now has many self-sown neighbors! The former compost pile is turning into quite the hang out for previous garden residents. As of today one can find seedlings of borage, cilantro, dill, bachelor buttons, sunflowers, and cosmos coming up all around where our mystery dweller resides. A full garden that I did not even plant! Got to love that!
The Mystery Squash has put on even more growth compared to last week. It is now even sporting some flower buds as you can see in the picture below.
I no longer believe it is a seedling from the zucchinis I have grown the last three years. Below is a picture of one of the zucchinis I have growing in the garden right now.
As you can see the leaves from the mystery squash look quite different in comparison to my zucchini plant. And for anyone that might be interested, the last three years I have been growing an heirloom variety of zucchini from Seeds of Change called Cocozelle Bush. (This link will take you to their page for this particular zucchini.) I have actually been growing seedlings from the same packet of seeds these last three years. Not too bad really. I have been impressed with their viability.
The Mystery Squash seems to be doubling in size every week and yet it still remains a mystery as to what it really is. Until it decides to reveal itself once and for all Thursdays here at Brambleberries in the Rain have now officially become Mystery Squash Thursdays. Be sure to visit next Thursday to check up on its progress.
{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
Cynthia!!!! I’ve GOT IT!!! I think that I know what your mystery squash is!
OK… I’m going to post a picture that I just took… see if you think that it looks the same…
OK… I posted my comparison photo…
Do you think that they look alike?
http://mysquarefootgardenadventure.blogspot.com/2009/06/cynthias-mystery-squash.html
The leaves of your plant do look very similar to my Mystery Squash. I am now beginning to wonder if this unidentified squash is a pumpkin….although for the life of me I cannot figure out how some pumpkin seeds got by my watchful eye…. Oh, and thanks for posting that picture! This is getting to be quite fun!
Cynthia, could you take a picture of just one leaf while kinda of standing over it… and post it tomorrow. I’ll do the same… that way we can really compare!
Fun!
Hi again Toni!
I posted a new picture of the Mystery Squash this morning on my Flickr account. This link will take you to it. Just look at how green those leaves are! I think I might need to do some more gardening in old compost piles. 
I had a similar mystery plant from my compost last year. I planted zucchini in a mound of my compost that I guess was full of pumpkin seeds. So needless to say I thinned the wrong one and end up with pumpkins instead of zucchini.
This is so exciting- I cant wait to come back and watch the progress of your mystery plant!
Oh I just love it when plants volunteer. I had a tomato plant sprout up way across the yard from where I had my veggies. Isn’t that weird? Looks like you hit paydirt this year with all the free plants sprouting. Can’t wait to see what your mystery squash turns out to be!
Cynthia, your volunteer garden looks healthier than my planted garden! Maybe I should just build a big compost pile in the middle of my property and start tossing my veggies into it! I would think a surprise garden would be all kinds of fun.
Looks like a pumpkin, crookneck (yellow) or butternut squash…have you planted any of these in the past? If so it is possible a seed was in the soil, or you brought in outside soil with the seed in there…or a bird could have dropped it in from a bird feeder or something.
Regards,
Mike the Gardener
This is fun! Mystery squash indeed! Who doesn’t love a good mystery?
Because I go ahead and toss everything into the compost, seeds and all, over the years I have had many volunteers and I have left many of them just go ahead and grow where ever they ended up. Because everything goes into the compost or the chicken coop (lots of seeds manage to make it through digestive tracts) and then onto all my different garden beds I have had cucurbits and tomatoes and lots of other stuff in my perennial beds or under my trees and it was rather nice having them there. Because of having tomatoes in containers (and missing picking some fruit) I have even had tomatoes grow up in my gravel.
What I have noticed about all of my cucurbit (squash family) volunteers, they never look or taste anything like the ones I have planted. Some are closer than others but none have been a match even to a squash I purchased at a grocery store.
It will be fun to see what you get! What really amazes me is that the seeds of the volunteers were clearly out all year, during too much rain, not enough, too cold etc, and yet they still come up. But purposefully planting if the weather conditions are not just right? No plants, not even one. That is the true mystery!
I have noticed, like Lanny says, that self sown plants often vary in quality. But I like that – the element of unpredictability. Let the mystery continue …
Dear Cynthia! I was happy to stumble upon your blog and your mystery squash. I love to let volunteers find their way in to my garden and I think I have a twin mystery squash coming up. Here’s a link to my top spring volunteers:
http://noplaeforsadie.blogspot.com/2009/06/volunteer-awards.html
The squash is much bigger now – a week later and it has started to vine: it is on the move. I can’t believe how much bigger it is than the squash I planted – perhaps even 10 times bigger.
Last year I had volunteer squash, too. They turned out to be white petty pan squash (or as my kids called them – UFO squash. Not my favorite to eat – probably why so many seeds ended up in the compost bin.)
Hi Cynthia! I can hardly wait until tomorrow… to see how your Mystery Squash is doing!
See what you think here… http://mysquarefootgardenadventure.blogspot.com/2009/06/cynthias-mystery-squash-revisited.html
Fun!!! Check back in later! Got to go make pancakes for the kids!