Hearty Volunteers

I use my own kitchen compost on my garden and this often leads to some interesting finds.  What I mean is that when you compost you sometimes end up with some interesting things that begin growing in your garden from seeds that were composted out of your kitchen.  I had just such an experience this year.

I planted some very neat and tidy rows of peas followed by some rows of carrots and then cabbage.  However, there were some interesting plants that popped up in between the rows.  My choice was either to pull them up, because they were not part of the neat tidy rows, or replant them and let them flourish somewhere in the garden.  I have a really hard time intentionally killing food bearing plants, I don't know why but I do...it just seems like such a waste.

I opted to move the plants and then make them work in the garden.  However, I was unsure what they were to be.  You see, cucumber, squash, zucchini, pumpkins, watermelon and cantalope all pretty much look the same when they start so I had no idea what I was growing.

I had 4 volunteers like this and what I ended up with was 1 cantalope and 2 pumpkins as well as 1 that may end up being a new weird hybrid as I think there was some cross pollination that occurred.

See what I would have missed out on if I would have pulled these volunteers up?

We are calling them our Pumpkin trees!