A Volunteer

This spring, when I began mowing the lawn, I cleaned up the area just off the deck so I could  mow around all the junk piled there.  You see, last fall and over winter, as our garage filled up with stuff and became essentially a storage unit for a couple of our kids, a few things got pushed out the door into the backyard.  So when it came time to start mowing the grass I consolidated the mess into an area as small as reasonable.  And so the mowing season began.

In June, as we were having a cookout to celebrate Himbeere's birthday, I happen to take a picture of the area by the grill, still looking pretty much like it did at the beginning of the mowing season.  The grill, a couple of broken wheel barrows, and a pile of tires.  The hose was nearby but at this point I hadn't yet moved it up onto the pile.

June 18, 2018

So the grass cutting continued uneventfully through July.  Then, along in early August, as I was mowing along, lo and behold, I saw we'd had a volunteer spring up!  A bit late in the summer to be starting up but there it was!

August 4, 2018

Since it basically wasn't in the way of anything I thought it would be interesting to let it grow and see what it would turn out to be.  I could tell from the leaves it was some kind of squash or gourd.  But whether it was a squash, pumpkin, zucchini, or cucumber, or something else was anybody's guess.  I suppose someone who did more gardening would be more familiar with the different kinds of leaves and might have been able to take a guess at what kind of plant it was, but not me.

August 18, 2108

The next time I mowed, the volunteer was flowering and I thought maybe the fruit would mature before the end of our growing season.  That would be pretty cool!

September 9, 2018

It wasn't long before a few of the flowers had turned into little gourds.  Didn't look like any kind of edible squash I'd ever seen.  But then I thought maybe its just not mature.  Maybe it will turn into acorn squash or something yummy like that.  Time would tell, I thought.

September 15, 2018

Alas, within a week the temperatures had begun to drop and it obviously was affecting the plant.  The leaves had picked up a bit of blight from the cold.

September 15, 2018

When I saw that I wasn't sure how much longer the volunteer would have for its fruits to mature.  At this point, they still didn't look like they were going to turn into anything more useful than fall decorations.

September 15, 2018

There it was, fruit and more flowers.  Unfortunately, those flowers most likely weren't going to have much of a chance.  This late in the season and still flowers?  Not likely.

September 15, 2018

And the gourds hadn't really gotten any bigger.  It wasn't looking very good for them.

October 15, 2018

The season continued a few more weeks and then we got our first snow.  That's not good for growing plants and it pretty much put an end to our volunteer.

October 15, 2018

The gourds didn't seem affected by the snow but it sure did a number on the vines.

October 15, 2018

All the time the vine was growing I hadn't touched it, hadn't disturbed any of the gourds.  They lay right where they grew.

October 15, 2018

On the ground or up on the grill.  They had come along but now it was pretty much at an end.

October 15, 2018

There were several of the gourds laying here and there.  None of them had gotten very big.  But, what the heck.  We harvested them anyway.

After all, they'll  make good fall decorations.  Since they went to all the trouble of growing, all on their own, the least we could do was show them off, right?  But then, again, maybe not.  Would that encourage others to volunteer?  Who knows.  The big question in my mind was, where did the seeds come from?  They don't look anything at all like anything we normally have in our house or yard.  Guess we'll never know.