Sneaky Seedlings

I don’t have a green thumb. I’m fairly persistent though, so I do occasionally get vegetables to grow and when that happens I am so overjoyed I can barely contain myself. What I love about gardening is that the garden can surprise you sometimes with plants that you either didn’t plant, or planted so long ago you gave up on them when suddenly you are faced with a fruit from a plant that came out of nowhere! That’s what happened today. In my little square foot garden I found a rock melon growing on the trellis. I remember planting rock melon, but it was at least 4 or 5 months ago. Could it have laid dormant in the ground this long? Surely it hasn’t been there the whole time and I just haven’t noticed? Well, a very welcome surprise. Grow little fella, grow!

I did say there were more surprises though! A plant that I definitely didn’t install myself: passionfruit! A kind little bird or other little animal must have donated a seed somewhere along the line. Next to our compost bin, growing on an old decaying mango tree is a rampant passionfruit vine FULL of fruit! There must be 100 fruit on that vine or more! They haven’t ripened yet, but I’m thinking I’ll have to learn how to make passionfruit curd with it. I’ve also heard somewhere that you can empty all the fruit and then freeze the pulp to use as needed. I can’t wait! Probably another couple of weeks before maturity at least.

The last little surprise in the garden is the rose that I planted last year donning a tiny flower bud. It must be a sign of good weather ahead – the start of winter. And well deserved after a hot and humid summer.

This has been a great way to cheer me up after a couple of pretty stressful weeks. I accidentally deleted all the files for the new website I’ve been writing. I finished writing it and then made a mistake trying to back up and ended up deleting instead. Ooops. Well, I’m almost finished re-writing and I should be able to post here VERY soon my brand new store. Keep checking up – it should be any day now!