Oh My Gourd Part 2

Time for a little update! About two weeks ago I filled you all in on our surprise compost pile plant life. (Click here to refresh your memory.)

Within a short period of time our compost pile had gone from looking like this:

To looking like this:

Recently, we noticed this bad boy had sprouted out from one of the vines.

We've been uncertain about what this bulging plant really is but just a few days ago we got our answer. The fruit of our plant has gotten much bigger in size and it has also begun to turn orange. We've got ourselves a pumpkin!

It turns out that the pumpkin seeds from last year's Halloween carvings are doing well in the compost pile. Not only has the pumpkin grown tremendously, but so has the plant that it has sprouted from. If you scroll up to the top of this post you can see what the plant looked like about a week and a half ago. Today the plant looks like this:

The walls of the compost pile have disappeared under a jungle of leaves. As much as we love to see that the pumpkin plant is thriving (especially in this summer heat) we will be pruning it back just a little so that it doesn't spill too far outside of the compost pile walls. Along with all the new leaves, we've spotted a lot of new flowers as well. Hopefully this will mean that we'll have a few more pumpkins growing as well.

For now we at least have one new pumpkin! Zac and I found this little guy growing on the ground just outside of the compost pile. We took this photo a few days ago when the new little pumpkin was the size of a baseball. Today the pumpkin is about the size of a child's small bouncy ball.

It's amazing how quickly they grow! Unfortunately, we don't think that these pumpkins will make it another three and a half months to become our carved jack 'o lanterns come Halloween. We hope that several more pumpkins will sprout up in time for the holiday celebration. It would be such a cool thing to be able to pick out our own pumpkin every year for Haloween. I'm sure that the future kiddos will have fun picking out their own pumpkins, watching them grow, carving them, and then putting them on display for all the other trick or treaters in the neighborhood.

In the meantime, Zac and I are excitedly awaiting the arrival of new pumpkins.....stay tuned!

Oh My Gourd!

Last summer, Zac and I thought that it would be nice to build a little compost area in our backyard. Now that we were no longer living in an apartment and had plenty of space outside, we could make it happen.

Zac removed the railroad ties that lined the length of the back fence and used them to construct a good sized compost bin. He filled it up with dirt that had been dug out of another part of our backyard (more details on that later), and we began to use our new compost pile regularly.

The majority of things that found their way to the compost pile included peelings from cucumbers, potatoes, bananas, zucchini, squash, oranges, etc. We also threw in grass trimmings, strawberry stems, watermelon rinds and our carved pumpkins after Halloween was over.  All in all our compost pile was working out just as we'd hoped. The railroad ties fit together nicely so we didn't have to worry about leakage of dirt through the walls of the bin. Plus Zac had constructed it along the fence furthest from the patio door which prevented us from being pestered by flies who found the compost pile to be their new hot spot.

A few months ago Zac and I started to notice a little plant growing in the middle of our compost pile. We had no idea what it was but we were curious to find out. Although we still used the compost pile for its original purpose, Zac also began to start watering the little plant that had sprouted up. As if it had grown overnight, our little plant had taken over the compost space and now it looks like this:

We were amazed at how big the plant had gotten in such a short amount of time. The leaves that are growing suggest that the plant is in the squash family. Zac and I started to think back on all of the things that we had thrown away in the compost pile that could have resulted in such a big plant. The very first thing that came to mind were the pumpkins that were tossed in at the beginning of November. Not only had we thrown in whole pumpkins but when we were carving them we disposed of their inner plant parts and threw those in the compost pile as well. Other thoughts on the potential result of this plant included squash, zucchini, and watermelon.

After the leaves filled in the entire bin the flowers started to bloom. Big, beautiful, yellow flowers started sprouting up all over the compost pile.

We also noticed a little fruit or veggie starting to grow. The first time we saw it, it was as small and green as a ripe lime.

Now it has grown to the size of a football. It seems to be the only one of its kind. Out of all the blooms on this plant this has been the only thing that has started to grow. From the coloring and shape our best bet is that we have a watermelon plant on our hands. No complaints from us there! We LOVE watermelon.

Perhaps soon we'll know for sure what this is.....we'll keep you updated.