I am a composting gardener, and what that means is that all year long I pitch my plant cuttings, fruit and veggie discards and coffee grounds into a big black barrel and in a few months they make dirt which I then use to supplement the horrific clay and rock "soil" that our house is sitting on.
The interesting thing about composting is that sometimes a few of those fruits and veggies, and sometimes the spent flowers too, end up throwing off seeds that then sprout the next year when you plant them. That is how I wound up with an accidental pumpkin patch in our backyard this year!
Having made umpteen batches of the Weight Watchers veggie soup, I figured this would probably be some boring zucchini or squash vine. But then it sprouted these adorable tiny pumpkins!
These pictures were taken a few weeks ago when the vine was healthy. But, see those eggs on that leaf down there? Well, they hatched out into about 100 stinkbug-type things and either they or the stupid a-hole of a grass man (our lawn has never looked worse, by the way) (also sorry, this is a non-cursing blog - I just couldn't help myself) are doing their best to try to kill it.
At this point I still have two pumpkins going strong. We'll see how it goes at harvest!
Oh, and the moral of this story? Never let bug eggs hatch out on your plants. And fire the grass man. (I did.)
Love,
Mama
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