Surprise!

My venture into gardening this year has not gone well. I had some lettuce and basil early in the season and a bunch of jalapenos are needing to be picked, but the rest of my plants failed to produce much of anything at all. I promise I watered and fertilized and babied the heck out of them. I just don't seem to have the proverbial green thumb.

So yesterday I'm out on our deck, tending to what's left of the near leafless stems and sticks I refer to as my garden, when I happened to look out at our bluff and see something growing that resembles a squash plant. You see, I've gotten in the habit of tossing my failures over the railing, down to the ground below in the hopes that Mother Nature might take pity and breathe life back into something I've all but killed. Up until now she hasn't.

So I ran down with my camera this morning to get a better look and this is what I found...

I have two rather healthy looking squash plants growing from what was last year's Thanksgiving centerpiece!

Ahem...

It's true... I threw at least a dozen small gourds over the rail. And maybe a peach pit or two. And the strawberries that no one ate.

Now before you start worrying that I've gone completely mental, throwing trash out in the yard, I must explain that the bluff is a very steep hill that leads down to the lake and we let grow wild. I figure anything with seeds has the potential to germinate and produce something the critters might like nibbling on. So you see, it's all for the greater good!

Of course, picture a 54-year-old woman out on a steep hill at the crack of dawn trying to take pictures of plants and you have another kind of crazy altogether!