Volunteer Vines

For the last several years I have gotten a volunteer vine growing somewhere on our place. Somewhere, that I did not plant them. The flower beds have been the usual place. This year one showed up in a pile of wood bark from last years fire wood.  I let it grow, since I hadn't planted a garden and I love the idea of a mystery vine. This is it's   lovely bloom. It blooms at night and by mid morning is gone. By evening, new ones will be opening again. I wonder if it's related to the Moon Flower? I'm sure it's not, but they are the same color and both bloom at night.

So, I let it grow. I told Tim to watch out for it and not to mow it or pull it up. I wanted to see what it would be. We were busy working and I pretty much just ignored it, not even paying attention to how big it was getting. One evening, after we pulled in, I glanced over at the side of our house, where my Elm tree is.
I couldn't believe it. While we were busy, this little vine had been busy too. It grew and climbed all the way to the top of the tree. That's what I get for not paying attention.

If you haven't figured out what it is yet, here's another hint. I'll show you the leaves.

Well, it was getting late when I discovered how large it was getting and didn't do too much looking. I had figured out  what it was and told Tim. He wanted to know how I knew, as I'd only tried once to grow this and hadn't had too much  success.  I recognized the leaves and at a quick glance saw some little 'fruits' coming on. So, here's another hint....

Do you know yet?


 I wonder if it's too late for them to get very big. We have til somewhere around the last of September before the first killing frost. We'll have to see how they do.





The next day was Saturday so, with my morning coffee in hand,  I went to check out my volunteer vine. Not only had it grown up the tree but, had weaved it's way in and around the too tall, and desperately needing mowed, grass. As I poked around trying to decide if any of the babies would even make it. I spotted something.

There hidden in the grass was a very nice sized Bird House Gourd! Last winter, when we were working on my birdhouse projects in the garage, some of the seeds that we cleaned out of gourds, must have fallen on the floor and were swept up and dumped with the rest of the bark and wood chips. I had planned to let this pile break down a bit and use it for mulch around my trees.
I'm more than pleased with the size of this one already. It should continue to grow until frost kills the vine. I'm hoping some of the babies also get big enough for at least some smaller gourds.

The volunteer vines have been a lot of fun. Last year, it was watermelons. I ended up with five delicious ripe watermelons before it was done. The year before it was cantaloupe! Once, watermelons grew in Snoopy's field -Snoopy is Jayme's horse-  he managed to step on every one before we could harvest them. He ate them too. Which is how the seeds got there, we had often fed him our left over watermelons chunks!

Did I ever tell you about when I grew watermelons to sell? I had over 600 plants one year. But, that is another story.....