Out of my Gourd
By Bill, posted on 07/13/2004


I've been amazed at how quickly plants can grow. After a good rain we have one variety of weed that will climb several inches a day. There are several as tall as me now. I pull them out when the mood strikes me but more often a stare them down daring them to grow right in front of me.

We get some truly odd weeds too. Last week I was passing by our "maturing" compost heap, the one that just sets for a good while composting, I noticed I couldn't see the bin at all. A bizarre alien plant had taken over the entire pile. Big giant thing with leaves that were a foot long and a foot and a half wide and giant orange flowers the like of which I had never seen! I tired to get closer and discovered that thorns cover each inch thick stem. I mentally placed this behemoth on my list of battles yet to fight.

But I knew I didn't want to let it go too long. I once found another alien plant. It was the thorniest thing I ever saw--downright menacing. I decided to let it grow for awhile to see if it would spawn aliens.

Finally after it flowered I decided to do a little research. Turned out it was a virulent weed called a Bull Thistle. Yes, it seems that weeds can be considered virulent or close enough. Each plant produces a million or so wind borne seeds. So hated are these plants that some state parks offer a reward if you find and report one.

Since no one was offering a reward for my Bull Thistle I followed the "decontamination" procedures which included carefully placing a garbage bag over the plant, cutting it by the stem and then double bagging it.

Today I decided to do battle with my alien compost bin invader. It was much too big to attack with the weed wacker so I grabbed my rusted mini-scythe and waded in. As I got close I noticed it was a climber... A viscous one at that. It had actually managed to snare a small tree branch with one of it's tendrils and was pulling the tree into itself. I was half expecting it to pipe up with "Feed me Seymour, I'm hungry!"

I was wading towards the behemoth, making quick work of the ring of weeds that were mounting a valiant defense when I noticed something large and green in the middle of the plant. Then I noticed an even larger one about the size of a nerf football. My first instinct was to run in case this pod burst and I was set upon by an alien invader because I knew too much. Realizing this was unlikely I took a closer look.

Not a cantaloupe, the color looked a little like a watermelon, but the vine looked familiar. I had it. They were pumkins! Yes, we did compost all of our Halloween pumkins last year.

I quick internet search confirmed that yes it was a pumpkin vine though I couldn't find a picture of one as large or with similar leaf sizes as ours. I guess growing in pure seasoned compost really gave it a boost.

So I decided to leave it. I think I'll name the plant "Jack." Hey, why not.




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