Crazy self seeded vine "topiary"

A long, long time ago I got a cheap green metal pole to hang my hummingbird feeder on.

I was peeved at the boring-ness of the pole and decided I would grow things up it. I found this great seed from Botanical Interests called Cardinal Climber (pretty basic) that said it would attract hummingbirds and so I sowed it.

Nothing happened and I went, "Blah." So I sowed some reliable Grandpa Ott seed I had saved for a while and it came up merrily... and then some time soon afterward Cardinal Climber decided it wanted to join in on the action (maybe it's like a competitive younger sibling).

And now I have this:
(pardon the pics sort of suck because I was too lazy and took them through my dirty kitchen window)

It's self seeded (and crossed with itself as you can tell by the random pink and white cardinal flowers). Of course the morning glory re-seeded too and now they've taken over the pole and the hummingbird feeder a bit too.

Lat year, to the chagrin of my husband, I attached a twine to the pole and to the nearest gutter so the vines could climb up it, which they did, and then decided to make a roof attack upon us.

It was kind of neat seeing the vines take over and nearly eat the house while framing our window, but the reality was it that was beginning to clog the gutters above... which is no good, so by autumn's end we had to tear it down and no twine attachment to the roof this year on my part.

(click on the pic to see more detail)

The nifty part is though that these vines want to EXTEND and do so at nearly a 90 degree angle as it's trying to reach out and find something to grab. When the wind blows, the vines look like they're fingers of some sort of scary green Cousin It trying to get a hold of you!

Oh, there's a hyacinth bean vine too somewhere in there, but he's sort of shy and we don't talk about him much :) (Hyacinth beans are edible too :)

Going native

First, just want to mention how sneaky vegetables can be. This green on green thing: green beans on green vines/leaves surprises, non-observant me sometimes and I had a bunch of beans earlier this week to harvest because I totally missed them.

Also hidden was this cucumber:

Camouflaged amidst all the leaves as well (and all the way in the back of the trellis. Easily a one pound cucumber! Pickles... or cucumber salad...? Cucumber salad for lunch today!

(another quick update: I was able to get the asparagus that popped up randomly in time and was it sweet and delicious. Hurray for fresh asparagus in July! Literally 2 minutes from garden to my plate)

Anyways, on to my story:

As I was walking out of the place I volunteer at earlier this week, I walked to my car, hopped in, and stared out the window in slight disbelief. Approximately 6 feet away, hanging by vines in a little past the cut grass of the parking lot into the wooded area were these green egg shaped things swinging in the wind.

Wild/native kiwi? I first thought initially, except I was pretty sure kiwi weren't native. I couldn't remember what kiwi leaves looked like and then I saw this flower (bad pic, sorry):


I started nearly jumping for joy when I realized that I had discovered a native maypop, aka passionflower vine growing on the property!!! I nearly ripped the entire vine from the ground until I thought better and grabbed a flower and fruit first so that I could show the administrative staff at my volunteering place.

They were nonplussed, and sort of thought, "Wha---?" and when I asked them if I could dig up the passionflower vine they said it was ok as long as I didn't get eaten by coyotes in the woods.

Easy enough.

Being too impatient to drive the 10-15 minutes home to grab the proper tools, I decided to give the vine a yank at the bottom since it had been raining and the ground was soft. Hmm... I got some (broke off) tap root and bent up the vine a little near the base in the process. That might not be good for the vine and so I found another vine and attempted to pull that up and same thing, some tap root, but no full rootiness.

Well, just to try to have more chances of success as these becoming established I took both vines, each over 6 feet in length, with fruit and flowers on them (not smart to take the entire thing probably, lots of plant to sustain with a lot less root now) and wrapped them into my car.

I popped them straight into a bucket of water and the weather has been cool out so I am hoping that I may see some roots developing that I might find a nice place to let the maypop carry on with regular growing activity and give me delicious fruit. If not this year, maybe the next!

(UPDATE: 3 days in and there be new roots growing! Also, I'd like to note that I have been trying to grow maypops prior to this discovery, receiving little seedlings from a local gardener lady, but the damn things always get eaten by squirrels/placed in poor areas by me/I break them >_<)

Passionflowers are a fascinating looking flower with a lot of symbolism/backstory to the Passion of Christ. The parts supposedly signify:

• The pointed tips of the leaves were taken to represent the Holy Lance.
• The tendrils represent the whips used in the Flagellation of Christ.
• The ten petals and sepals represent the ten faithful apostles (less St. Peter the denier and Judas Iscariot the betrayer).
• The flower's radial filaments, which can number more than a hundred and vary from flower to flower, represent the Crown of Thorns.
• The chalice-shaped ovary with its receptacle represents a hammer or the Holy Grail
• The 3 stigmata represent the 3 nails and the 5 anthers below them the 5 wounds (four by the nails and one by the lance).
• The blue and white colors of many species' flowers represent Heaven and Purity.

(Thanks wikipedia!)

Pretty cool eh?

Passionflowers are commonly called Maypops in the southeastern part of the U.S where they are native because in May they seemingly pop out of nowhere. I have also heard from locals that they are named this because the fruits are ripe sometimes trailing on the ground, when stepped upon they "may pop." Ah, local lore.

They are a deciduous vine as compared to its South American tropical companion vine you might find in grocery stores. The tropical ones in grocery stores have an orange flesh with little black seeds and purple-black skin when ripe. Maypop fruit however have greyish-white flesh with black seeds and orange skin when ripe. This orange skin gives it is other name, apricot vine.

Interestingly enough, the parts of the plant, leaves, stem, flowers, when eaten together apparently produce a combination of chemicals, that can help with sleep and are anxiety reducer. Use of passionflower as a medicinal is unusual in the States, but popular in Europe.

Though the fruits of the maypop I have now are green and still unripe, I took one and cut it open curious to see what it looked like. Pretty drab white spongy flesh. When it ripens up I've seen pictures where the entire fruit case is filled with big cells of the fruit, like a pomegranate's, with the black seeds within each cell.

Taking pictures of the unripe fruit though was still a lovely experience as the light of my camera would allow the green skin to show through from the inside.

Enjoy!

Grow my pretties, grow!

My first year gardening I built 2 large-ish trellises using branch trimmings borrowed from neighbor's yards. They've been holding up well enough for their shoddy construction, a little rotted twine here, a broken branch there. I just attach a new branch/stick with more twine in an empty or fragile looking place and pray for the best. This year I attempted to plant Kentucky Wonder and Blue Lake beans by each of the trellises, but for some reason, be it sun or a pest issue, only one trellis got covered with vines. It seems that the other trellis was not going to get covered with beans despite a second attempt on my part, so I figured I'd try the next best fast growing vine I could think of: cucumbers!

I grew cucumbers last year and was aghast as to how fast the vines grew and smothered everything in its path. This year I figured I'd have it covered, plant fewer seeds and thin, thin, thin. Yeah... that thinning thing is hard for me... it always seemed like such a waste... so once again, the cucumber is taking over. This is not a bad thing per say either; I know plenty of people who like/want cucumber and my husband and I are interested in trying to make kosher dill pickles again (he hates vinegar and the first time we made them it was failure, the jar wasn't big enough and the scum reached the pickles, ick).

It's just that... sometimes the cucumbers... they frighten me. I'll be looking one way and then I turn around and it's though it's grown a foot in front of me! One minute there's a flower and then the next, fruiting.


It's sort of good that I let the cucumbers go to town because I've been noticing some squash vine borer moths flying around the cucumber/strawberry/okra bed, and so I think they've gotten desperate and are going to make their move on the cukes. Fudge muffins. Well, this is why I've got more plant than I need... *sigh*

The irony of me being up to my chin in cucumbers is that my husband doesn't even like them with the exception of an occasional kosher dill pickle. I've found recipes that involving cooking them and he tolerates them a lot more, but it's definitely something he isn't fond of. He also doesn't like melons (cantelopes, watermelons, honeydew... he's a nut!) So, I wonder if his taste buds sense a similar distaste with cucumber as he does with those as they are all in the same family.

As you might have noticed, these cucumbers come armed. Not sure what's up with the black spikies, but my understanding is that the pickling types (this is a cheap seed pack I picked up) tend to be short, stubby and spiky fruited. The spikes come off fairly easily when they are mature enough to pick. A little more prickly when young.
Perhaps I'll go a more exotic route next year in cucumbers, if I do grow them. Maybe something like the Armenian cucumbers that are fuzzy. Gotta love a fuzzy cucumber ;)

My butternut squash seems to still be holding on, though I do note nasty fracas near the base of one of the vines, and the usual suspect is a vine borer. I've allowed another main vine to grow alongside the ground as I noticed it had started producing small white roots. If it roots up well the squash will probably survive as it has alternate routes to get water/nutrients. It's sort of a crap shoot when growing the squash up a trellis too as it might survive the borers better if it was growing fully on the ground to produce more roots where the stem touched, but ground is precious space and if you saw my husband with the spin trimmer, well...
Lookin' good though! I think it needs to turn more yellow and the stem becomes more dry and woody when it's mature enough to eat/cure for storage. Mmmm, butternut squash soup. Vegetable gardening seems sort of morbid in the sense that you grow your "babies" only in anticipation to eat them!

All this cool rainy weather has apparently confused the heck out of the asparagus and it thinks its spring again because 2 lovely looking stalks were poking out of the soil this morning. I jumped at the thought of eating some of it for dinner and reminded myself to grab it before dinner but of course forgot to. I have hopes that it might be there still tomorrow, but as the asparagus is as frightening in its speedy growth as cucumber is (potentially 7 inches in one day), I won't be surprised to see some frondy, unappetizing stalks tomorrow. *Cry* Proscuitto wrapped asparagus, thou hast thwarted my tummy!
I keep becoming paranoid about my asparagus because these were moved after their first year in one bed to another as we realized that the bed was in an unfortunate spot. While they appear to be doing well, I couldn't accurately gauge if they seemed to have suffered greatly because well, we had moved them. Upcoming spring should give me a more accurate picture. I understand too that asparagus really like to stay established too. Able to produce for 20-30, and maybe 50 years, their roots can reach as deep as 40 feet! So, when I plan on moving, as I don't think I'll be in this house that long I don't know if the asparagus will be willing to move with me.

Honestly though, I am probably more paranoid by the thought that someone might not want an asparagus bed for free when I move. Fresh asparagus with the house! That ought to be a selling point hm?

Garden pics

Egyptian Walking Onion
Aforementioned Sea of Shiso

Unusual grasshopper on shiso leaf, love the colors!

Another angle of the grasshopper. Click on the photos, they look a lot better blown up!

Twisty vine Diane gave me and random "borrowed" crepe myrtle branches being used to support self seeded vines.

On a random note, I am needing to steal more grass clippings from the neighbors after I dig up the garden bed paths so I keep the weeds down. I realized that I want to devote all "borrowed" grass clippings from neighbors to use in the paths and keep out of the actual garden because I obviously don't know all the crazy things they might be using on their lawns.

I can then devote all the weed seed ridden, non-treated with anything clippings from my house in compost pile for use.