Here is our Mystery Squash as we are wrapping up the second week of July. Getting quite big don’t you agree? I am pretty sure this big and beautiful plant is a pumpkin just waiting to show itself.

The old compost pile almost looks like I designed and planted it. It is looking so pretty these days. The above picture cut it off but at the back of the old pile is a volunteered sunflower and in the picture below you can see it is not too far away from blooming.

The first flower on the self-sown bachelor buttons bloomed yesterday. I was hoping for one of the pink ones that bloomed in the herb garden last year but this one is pretty too and covered in buds as the picture shows.

The borage is still pumping out flowers and buds and I just love this photo below. It is like sailing a sea of borage.

The volunteered cilantro has already bolted. Last year I did not catch the seeds from my cilantro fast enough and this year it has self-sown all over the place. I was pleasantly surprised by this too. My rabbits love it and have been enjoying it for the past few weeks.

Finally, I have saved the best for last. While photographing all of the above blooms I noticed a honeybee hovering around the Mystery Squash. Today the Mystery Squash has two male flowers in bloom as well as one female flower. I got an up close and personal view of this honeybee going into the male flowers and then coming out all covered in pollen before heading on over to the female flower. It was so interesting to watch too because while in the female flower the honeybee sort of just wandered around the base of the flower not even seeming to notice that the pollen all over its back was performing something magical.

I took so many shots of this moment and decided to combine them into this little clip for below.

These next two pictures show just how covered in pollen that little bee was.

Thanks to that little bee I will hopefully be able to show a tiny pumpkin forming next week!

Update # 3

It has been so much fun hearing and reading about everyone’s past and present experiences with squashes coming up unexpectedly in their compost. Who knew that this was such a common occurrence!

The growth on the Mystery Squash slowed down just a little bit since the last update. I can’t say the same for the borage growing all around it though. I think I just might have to thin some of it out! My intention was to leave everything alone and let it fend for itself but the borage is taking over.

The flower buds on our Mystery Squash have grown some since last week and I am sure it won’t be long before this mystery plant will be flowering. Hopefully all that borage in bloom will help draw the bees to the Mystery Squash’s flowers.

I am rather convinced now that this mystery vegetable is either a pattypan type squash or maybe even a butternut. But I still really have no idea. I also remain baffled as to how the seed got in compost pile in the first place.

Maybe by next week’s update it will have a flower opening. Until then I am left to guess some more.

Yesterday the rain clouds magically parted in the afternoon and the sun came out long enough for me to take a nice stroll through the garden with my camera in hand. There really is not a whole lot in bloom right now but I was able to take a few pictures for today which happens to be Bloomin’ Tuesday.

This first picture is of some Borage that is growing wild all around my compost piles. It is quite pretty as the flowers are both blue and pink. Some type of mutation I suppose but all the borage growing over there is blooming like this. I have seen blue borage flowers, pink borage flowers, and white borage flowers but never have I seen any both blue and pink. I never would have even noticed them if it wasn’t for this little quest to find flowers in bloom!

The next picture isn’t exactly a flower but it does look nice. This large rock is sitting along the back end of our yard and almost overnight the moss has “bloomed” all over it. In the right hand corner you can see yet another wild blackberry creeping up on the rock. Sigh, yanking up the wild blackberry never ends!

This final picture is actually of my neighbor’s Japanese maple. I saw it yesterday and thought I had better get its picture while I still can because as you can see it is dropping its pretty yellow leaves. This maple is so beautiful this time of year. It is a Coral Bark Japanese maple (Acer palmatum ‘Sango Kaku’) and once it drops all of its leaves you are left with its beautiful red limbs. It really looks nice when everything else is so dark and dreary. In a few more weeks I will post another picture of it once it starts to show its bark.

That’s all I have to share for today’s Bloomin’ Tuesday. Be sure to visit Jean’s blog and check out all of the other Blooming Tuesday posts!