Sunday, May 16, 2010

Everyone loves suprises

Everyone loves surprises, right? 

Well, my compost has provided me with some fun surprises over the years.  How did the compost give back this time?  Recently I composted directly under a tree that was in need of some organic TLC, and then added some grass clippings on top of it.  Later I added bark mulch on top to pretty it up.  The other day, as I walked by the tree I notice some dark green seedlings and chuckled to myself.  A few days later, there was a strange mound under the tree, and when I took a closer look, I saw that more seedlings were pushing up on the mulch creating the mound.  I dug down and found the cast off seed pods.  I'm pretty sure they are butternut squash seeds.  If I am correct about the seeds,  it looks like the yummiest butternut squash soup scraps have resulted in a bunch of healthy seedlings, and hopefully more yummy squash.  

It's not the first time that the compost has given back either!  In the past, I composted into a corner of the garden, and we ended up with a cantaloupe plant that yielded some small but tasty melons.  Since the garden was reconfigured I can't compost into the corner, but this year I already found some tomato seedlings from some cherry tomatoes that fell to the ground last year.  It's always fun to get surprises, and I'm excited to find out if the surprise seedlings will really be squash.  Stay tuned! 

No comments:

Post a Comment