Surprises and Disappointments

For me, one of the coolest things about the third year of gardening the same ground and using compost I make myself is the growth of volunteer plants.  Vegetables that I did not plant appear like magic in the garden.  No, I don't think the gnomes are doing it.  Here's what happens... tomatoes, cucumbers, etc that rot on the vine get tossed in the compost or fall to the ground and get mixed into the soil.  In the spring, after the compost has been spread and the garden tilled, seeds from those rotten veggies that did not decompose sometimes germinate.  This year 4 or 5 red cherry tomato plants grew as volunteers, and this fall they have been producing fruit heavily.

Now, volunteer plants popping up are normal in a garden.  For me, they are a pleasant surprise.  An even bigger surprise is when a volunteer vegetable plant pops up and it's something that you have NEVER grown. This happened to me this year, and I discovered it recently while cleaning out a seedbed where I'd grown cucumbers.  Nestled in there was a vine with these odd bluish-green pods on it.  Inside each pod was what looked like a green cherry tomato.  Here's a picture...

The mystery fruit is on the right.  The pods are paper-thin, and on the far bottom right you can see what the inside fruit looks like.  Have you guessed what this is yet?  These are tomatillos, also known as ground cherries.  They taste similar to a tomato...a different flavor, a little less sweet, but in the same ballpark.

The conundrum is this - How did tomatillo seed get into my garden?  The easiest answer is via bird poop, but I'll never know for sure.  Maybe it was the gnomes.

So, in early summer I planted Connecticut Field Pumpkins as a relay crop after something else got harvested.  They took off, sending vines all over the garden.  A grand total of two pumpkins formed.  The first one was harvested but some sort of bug was already in it and it rotted on our counter top.  We had high hopes for the second pumpkin, but those hopes have been dashed...

This appears to be the work of a rabbit.  Cute little bastards.  I shake my fist at them, and think mean thoughts.  I don't think I'll be planting pumpkins again.  I'll probably go with butternut and acorn squash next year instead.  I did not plant butternuts this year, and Angelia misses them.

What's your favorite winter squash?