Thursday, March 4, 2010

Crashing pumpkins

We've planted several things in the garden so far, among them some natives - bottlebrush, grevillea - plus a crepe myrtle, frangipani, bougainvillea, passionfruit vine and so on. I've come to realise some things grow faster than others, but nothing compares to the pumpkin plant that appeared, quite by accident, from kitchen scraps thrown onto what was a temporary compost heap.

This was it in late September:


It has since swallowed most of the backyard and has turned hanging the washing into an adventure (complete with the fear of stumbling across a deadly brown snake, not uncommon here this time of year):


It's like The Day of the Triffids out there. Another plant, similarly uninvited, was moved behind the house, so we're slowly being encircled:


Without us even noticing, it's also managed to climb into other trees. It's nothing if not tenacious:


One surprise upside to this is that it has a lot of very pretty flowers (I had no idea):


And, of course, it has real, live pumpkins, the largest of which are about a foot in diameter. I don't know much bigger they'll get - we're not even sure what type of pumpkins they are - and more keep appearing.


                                      


I reckon we have about 20 or so, at least. What on earth we're going to do with them all I don't know.
I don't mind eating pumpkin, but this is really getting ridiculous.

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