Wayward Seeds

     Plants just have a mind of their own. I'm not totally given up ever having a vegetable or flower garden, but can declare this year a pretty big bust. I won't say fail because I'm learning a bit so maybe next year can improve. The lessons cost me $12 in seeds and $25 in dirt. Oh, and the $14 for more mature pepper and tomato plants will end up yielding two peppers and probably about 8 useable tomatoes. A tad bit of mixed positive and poor results was the leafy lettuce. One of the planters while it took longer, keeps yielding fresh leaves. The other I think over crowded so not getting the full leaves, but a lot of growth. Between the two, I had enough for a big salad every other week and in between, enough for sandwiches since the end of June. 

     Here's my stupid garden story. I was getting excited as I started seeing flowering where the butternut squash and pumpkins were planted. I thought I had figured out what was plant and what was weed so did a nice tidy. When after a week, nothing seemed to change, I had a thought. Have I been nurturing weeds?

I wanted to trust that the plants were just pokie as last year I got four, if not small, decent tasting acorn squash towards mid September. But, sure enough a Google Lens upload of this photo identified my growth as velvetleaf, an invasive species and likely it took over my healthy seeds. Links to Reddit confirmed this is a common rookie gardener mistake. My area was way to shady, and the good plants needed plenty of sun and lots of water. Velvetleaf thrived in the shade and the bouts of dry weather and high heat we've had. 

     

     Not all wayward seeds were my nemesis. You might remember the single little sunflower seeds I planted last year? I had received one of those tiny little clay planter kits with a pellet of dirt and plant food. I started it inside and moved it to a big pot. Here's how it looked last year. 

About the time it looked looked like the free peony plant I replanted from the Buy Nothing post ( along with several hostas and chive plants) was going to make it, I noticed another plant starting right by the garage. I suppose I dug up, or shifted dirt around and there were sunflower seeds that dropped from last year's plant. Here's my gift this year for absolutely no effort on my part! 

     I'm going to read up on how I can save the seeds at the end of summer and intentionally plant sunflowers next year. I think they'd be a wonderful surprise along the back of the fence, facing the park as people take walks or enjoy the park. I'd also love me to add them to the north side of the house, but maybe they'd not grow so easily there. If I just get another wayward plant from wayward seeds next year, that will make me happy too.