Any Volunteers?

Why, yes! We have several volunteer plants in the garden. Volunteer means we didn't plant the things or plan on them, they just appeared on their own. The chervil is always volunteer. I think it was planted last century (slight exaggeration, perhaps), and yet it grows like a weed all over the damn garden every year. There are always some brave little potatoes that survived the fall harvest and poke out their shoots in the spring, only to be ruthlessly exterminated because they're in the middle of the beets. You gotta be tough to be a gardener.

But some volunteer plants get to live on. The volunteer lettuce was much appreciated this year, and was spared by the rototiller. As were the chives. And then there's this monster.

This is our compost heap. I know, it's kind of ghetto. It is yet another sterling example of junk farming. But you see that gigantic plant that appears to be right inside the compost heap? It is indeed right inside the compost heap. That's a volunteer squash plant. Of some kind. We're not sure yet whether it's acorn squash or pumpkin. I'm hoping for the acorn squash, because I like those better. And whatever it is, there's going to be a lot of it, because there's already like 50 blossoms on that thing (perhaps another slight exaggeration).

And on another completely random note, it is clear to me that the majority of my readers do all their blog reading at work, because I don't see a whole lot of traffic here on the weekends. What a bunch of slackers you all are. How do you stay employed? But that's why I'm posting about a volunteer squash plant today. I can be as weird and boring as I want on weekends and know that only a handful of people will be witness to my randomness.