By Dee Reid
My spring garden started sprouting early this year. Even before my sugar-snaps germinated in late February, something unexpected sprung up in the pea patch. Looked like squash seedlings, but that couldn’t be, since my zucchinis and summer squash got wiped out by the bugs and worms last year, and the year before, come to think of it.
A few days after I disposed of the new squash look-alikes, the same sturdy little boogers started peeping up in the arugula bed. Then amidst the chard and red-leaf lettuce. Dang. Who invited these unexpected visitors anyway?
No problem, I kept snatching the volunteer seedlings up and tossing them away like weeds. But they kept on poking their perky little heads through the soil.
Soon the strangers were showing up in the bed I had prepared for tomatoes, but hadn’t even planted yet. What the heck?
Then I remembered. Last fall, I threw several rotting Halloween pumpkins into my compost bin. They bio-degraded very nicely, thank you very much, and I smugly dumped the most excellent results on all of my garden beds.
Now I’ve got pumpkin bumpkins sprouting all over the place. File this in the department of unintended consequences, next to the humility lessons.
Hmm, maybe next year I should save some zukes, instead of eating every last scrap, to throw in my compost pile . It may be the only way I’ll ever get a decent squash crop.
Just another reminder that no matter how efficient and earnest we are in the garden, we’re not always really in charge after all.