11 November 2011

Accidental gardener!

Y'all recall my garden box ... how could I forget the good-natured ribbing Gloria gave me when she asked "We wait a month for a post, then you post a picture of DIRT?"  LOL  Well, I have more pictures of my "dirt" which actually contains no soil ...apparently something I tossed into the box as kitchen waste has grown!  And this is in spite of our fourth frost already, and second sub-freezing hard frost.  Whatever this plant actually is, it is quite determined.
growing in the garden box

another pic of my mystery plant
The suspect list is: sweet potatoes, russet potatoes, or acorn squash ... right now I am leaning towards the russet option after a Google image search and given how deep this bad boy is.  I think it may be one of the "bad" potatoes that inspired me to crochet my potato bag ... those were extras from hubby's coworker's garden in the next county.

I am hoping if this is a potato plant that it will survive my lack of attention, as I went out to stir in the last two weeks' worth of eggshells, broccoli stalks, carrot peelings, and coffee grounds (plus shrimp shells for fun).  I was not expecting my compost material to survive the frosts we've had so early.  Last time I stirred the "dirt" I had noticed a couple of the potatoes were trying to send out roots, but the next night we had our first sub-30s hard frost so didn't think much of it the next day.

Now if this is actually a weed, someone please tell me quickly!  Right now I am pleasantly stunned something is growing ... remember, I *am* the one who had mint die on her.

2 comments:

glorm said...

Whatever it is, that's one hardy plant. I wonder if there's some strange, new vegetable to follow it?

dfr2010 said...

A second night of frost has done the mystery plant in. Ah well ... it was still surprising and exciting that something took off in the garden box already (two seasons ahead of schedule). I have hope for the spring now.