The Circle of Life

Bad news about the squash.

We went to the beach for a couple of days, and when we got back, they had gone from a little sickly-looking to, well, dead. It looked like the stems had split at their bases, which from what I've read means they were probably victims of a squash vine borer.

Man, was I mad! Even the blossoms were too dried-out to eat. I didn't pay much for the starts, but the ones I had raised from seed - I was attached to those little guys.

Meanwhile, however, a most interesting development on the other side of the house:

I had puzzled over this for some time, and let it continue growing mostly out of curiosity. It looked like a vine of some sort, maybe grapes. When my friend Megan came over last week, she said, "I think it's a squash vine."

"That's impossible," I said. "How would it get there?"

She laughed. "Did you throw a squash off your porch in a blind rage one night?"

No, I said, but I had a ton of squash and gourds out here all winter as decorations, and some of them didn't make it to the compost pile before the squirrels attacked...

There are blossoms now, so I guess we'll find out in a few weeks! And if the borers come knocking here, I'll be ready with a syringe of Bacillus thuringiensis. Bring it on.