Mystery Squash June 4, 2009

I am amazed by how much growth it has put on in one week. It has more than doubled in size. I guess it loves the warm weather we have been having. (We actually have been on the dry side here in Northern Oregon which is a big difference compared to the wet cold spring we had last year.)

I will continue to keep posting weekly updates on this unknown garden resident until it reveals its true self once and for all. My two guesses so far are either a zucchini or a pumpkin- but I am so careful when it comes to not letting seeds from our food scraps into the compost for fear they will germinate everywhere so I remain baffled.

So yes, a month ago I said, “enough is enough, I am sick of looking at you” and told my husband it must be moved. He did look at me a little sideways though as I know he thought that could only mean more work for him. I assured him it was not going to be a large move, just across the yard and up the ridge where the notorious Scotch broom once resided (and is attempting its return I might add).

Now that the compost has settled in to its new home (and I am not too sure if I like it there either…just please don’t mention this to my husband) I am faced with this sort of humus and worm filled 12 foot long crater in the back of the yard. I have eyed this crater for weeks now and decided my pumpkin and melon seedlings would enjoy spending the summer growing there. There is plenty of room back there for them to sprawl all they want and I know the ground is nice and fertile thanks to my wiggly worm friends and the generous amounts of fertilizer my two rabbits provide.

That brings me back to what caused me to do a double take. I spotted the other day, coming up right smack in the middle of the compost crater, a squash seedling of some sort. It looks an awful like the zucchini seedlings I have been growing for the last three years in this garden. My confusion has to do with the fact that I never allowed any zucchinis to get enormous last year to where they could possibly produce viable seeds. In fact last year’s zucchini was pathetic thanks to them being swallowed up by towering cosmos.

So where did this little seed come from and what exactly is it? It is quite the mystery and a rather exciting one to a gardener like me that gets into unexpected seedlings emerging from nowhere. My only dilemma is the question of letting it live in squash harmony with my pumpkin and melon babies or giving it the boot. I think I would like to let it stay and see what it grows into. If I was interested in saving seeds I would probably be worried about cross pollination and I would then certainly want to yank it up. But seeing that I am not too interested in saving seed from my squashes, melons, peppers, and tomatoes this year (I couldn’t possibly give them the room they need to prevent cross pollination) I might as well let it stay and reveal itself to us as the growing season progresses.

As you can see in its picture taken just today, it is doing quite well and appears even happier than my coddled little seedlings. Go figure.

I’m also trying out another way of starting seeds in transplantable pots. I got the idea from a comment Daphne left on the post about newspaper pots. (If you haven’t checked out her blog, Daphne’s Dandelions, you should. She really knows how to grow veggies.) My idea began with using toilet paper rolls as little seed pots. I know some people use these all the time and slit one end of the roll to fold over to create a bottom for the pot. I tried this several months back and did not care for cutting little slits in all of those rolls.

After reading in Daphne’s comment that she never messed with making a bottom for her seed pots I began to think what if I just cut the toilet paper roll in half and fill with soil and not worry about a bottom. I decided to try this out and managed to make 34 little toilet paper roll pots.

In them I sowed some carrot seeds. I really can not believe that I am planning on transplanting carrot seedlings. Never have I thought to do this before. But I have had the worst luck with my direct sown seedlings getting eaten so I consider these to be my insurance. I really want homegrown carrots. I still plan on direct seeding some but I have these transplants just in case. Plus I figured it would be a good experiment to see if I like starting seeds in pots made from cardboard rolls with no bottoms.

The carrot seeds I sowed are the wildest looking carrots I have ever seen! I am mostly growing them to shock my kids even though the seed packet states that they are highly nutritious.

I also managed to plant some seeds of:

•  Buttercrunch Lettuce
•  Kale
•  Broccoli Raab
•  Bok Choy
•  Arugula

 I can’t wait for these to start coming up now! I still have some more types of seed to sow in the next day or two. Unfortunately, here soon that means I will have to start pulling out my cosmos. They completely took over one of the garden beds this year and although it was nice to see them in bloom I now have no room for the fall veggies. I hate to pull them as they are so pretty but if I don’t then there will be no fall veggies. One cosmos plant that just started to bloom has a flower completely different from the rest of the cosmos. It is so huge and pretty! I will end today’s post with a picture of it.