Thursday, July 17, 2008

The End of the Mystery Plant

Yesterday the mystery plant met it's demise. When it was first discovered and transplanted back in April, it seemed so much like a squash, especially it's seed leaves.
The mystery plant grew vigorously and took over the whole tepee built for it. This was just a few days ago. When my true squashes sprouted and began to grow the comparison between the two started to cast some doubt. The zucchini and buttercup squashes had prickly leaves and stems and the mystery plant did not. The mystery plant was an adept climber, while the buttercup squash had to be coaxed and trained. And the mystery plant's leaves looked less and less similar to those of the squash. But the true test came when it finally blossomed. It seemed to take forever to do so. It finally bloomed and in doing so, revealed itself to be an impostor. I didn't even let the flowers open. Here's the beginning of the flowers.
Yesterday I cut it off at the base of each of the 3 plants. I'm letting it dry on the tepee before I tear it down because my compost has so much green matter in it right now. At the base of the tepee I planted some cucumbers to replace it. Oh well, it was worth a try.

Recent harvests:
1 very large beet. The rest of the beets are from a 2nd seeding attempt and are not yet harvesting size. But this one joined some other beets from our CSA to make a Beet Rosti last night for dinner.
Carrot thinnings. I think these will be a snack before the day is out. Most of these are from my carrots that are planted under the squash tepee and don't get full sun. I'm glad to see that they are still developing a root despite the limited light.

1 comment:

Marcia said...

I'm sorry for my role in fostering the fake squash.

Mommy