Monday, June 25, 2012

The Unintentional Gardener

Back in March, I posted my experience and background research on building a keyhole garden. Truth is, I ran out of bricks and haven't had a chance to go get a load of dirt or plant a proper garden. We have continued to use our compost heap, now relocated to the center of (what will someday be) the keyhole garden.

Due in large part to the unusually wet start to the summer, my inattentiveness has borne unintentional fruit (pun intended). The wet weather has also caused an explosion in the cricket population, but I'm hoping that we keep getting rain each week.

Here are pictures of what looks like a squash vine that sprouted out of our compost heap.


Even more amazing than the vine growing out of my compost heap is the fact that a friend visiting last week discovered that I have veggies growing where the compost heap used to be located. This as-yet unidentified vegetable is growing alongside two very nice grape tomato plants.


I got some help with the harvest.





2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Up here in Seattle, we are making jokes about Juneary and Febuly because the rain just keeps on coming. So I think about rain a lot, and how it affects us. It does bear some unexpected "fruit" even without any gardening effort from me this year. It's mostly made me think about scorning what others are probably praying for.

Jonathan Kotinek said...

When we were in Seattle/SE Alaska last summer, I think I remember a hearing a figure somewhere around 150" of rain per year? We've just passed the 30 mark for the year...still officially in a drought, but the summer has been much milder than usual because of the fairly frequent rains.

I like to think about how weather affects culture, too. For example, all of the literature and film that I've read/seen come out of the nordic countries and Russia have a darkness to them that reminds me of their long dark winters. I suppose a Texas literature would have a harsh quality, but I've never given it much thought.