Review ('08) Surprise Crops

Not everything in our garden was intentionally planted there by us. Some things just came up on their own, like magical presents from the goddess of the garden. Or something like that.

Cantaloupe (approx. 8 vines) The best of these was the cantaloupe. It just sprung up all tight in a bunch, and I suppose it came from the improper composting we were doing. (See, rather than make a heap, we thought to ourselves “Why not just place the organic matter on the ground where it will go in the end anyway?” It probably would have worked if we'd generated a great deal more organic matter, but as it was, a thin layer of waste topped a section of yard that would eventually become the site of our garden.)

We transplanted it to the same row as the cucumber, and it grew and spread and was amazing. The fruit was no bigger than a softball, a single-serving of cantaloupe. In retrospect, sharing the row with cucumbers was probably an unwise move, as the cantaloupe seem to have cross pollinated with the cucumbers, giving them a slight cucumber flavor. Still, free cantaloupe, and they were carefree.

Onion (2?) Unplanted onion also came up, and not that chumpy kind that grows in your yard accidentally, no! This onion was big, no doubt some kind of growth from the pseudo-compost layer. Sadly, we lost track of it, and once we came back from our trip, signs of the plant were gone, so I don't know if they were any good.

Nigella (2 plants) Near the house, in a bed I have not tended, this weird, wonderful flower grew. It was hard to find out what it was, but eventually I did. Nigella. I saved some of the seeds and plan to plant a bunch of it next year. What a cool plant. It has this strange, double-decker flower, kind of like a passion flower, only smaller, and the leaves are thin and fern-like.

Weeds (several) Two other plants, a beautiful flower and a beautiful grass, sprouted up. The flower was like a morning glory, white with bright magenta edges. It twined around the tomato stakes and I loved seeing it there. The grass was a triangular stemmed thing, with beautiful spear leaves, kinda like a spider plant. It was so pretty. I let both of these plants stay. Turns out that was a mistake, because after reading an article about the peskiest weeds, I learned that my beautiful morning glory was actually bindweed, the strangler of garden plants. And my pretty grass was yellow nutsedge, an invasive weed that is difficult to get rid of. Unless you have pigs. Which we don’t.

So I nurtured these two weeds, and will, no doubt, be seeing them again next year. It isn’t a total wash, though. The nutsedge, it turns out, creates underground tubers that are used by some cultures as food. “Chufa”, it’s called, and apparently it can be roasted and ground and turned into a delicious drink. Looks like we will know for sure next spring.