Accidental Pumpkins

This year Bear and I created a container garden on our front porch. Although we have plenty of room for a regular garden, we also share this land with deer, rabbits, goats, and other critters who'd just love fresh produce.

We've been working on mulch pits since last fall, tossing things like vegetable peels, apple cores, etc., into the mix. When spring came, we used the mulch for our container garden. We planted squash, cucumbers, green peppers, tomatoes, and okra.

All came up beautifully, but there was something off with the okra. The blossoms appeared to look more like squash blossoms, and when they fell, a round ball-looking thing form.

It grew. And grew. And grew. Even more confusing, the okra had vine-like characteristics, and then started blooming the more familiar purple and yellow Okra blossoms.

It seems last year's Halloween pumpkin made a comeback, and a volunteer pumpkin vine had infiltrated our okra.

Now our one lone pumpkin is developing and nice orange color, it's way early for Halloween, and I have no idea what to do with an ornamental pumpkin this time of year. If it was a pie pumpkin, it would soon find itself in a pie crust, but for now, I just keep watering the plant and watching it grow.

As a side note, I finally got some okra too.