Pop Ups

Ah, the joys of making my own compost. The process isn't all that 'joyful', throw veggie scraps, weeds, etc. into a homemade composter and shovel it around now and then. Same process with chicken/rabbit manure. Neither, might I add, is a pleasant experience.

The end result, of course, is well worth it. Beautiful compost, rich and earthy smelling and free. Can't beat free. Now that I'm using my own exclusively, I'm getting what I call 'pop ups'. Plants that pop up in places where they have no business being. I discovered the first pop ups last year, they were all tomatoes. This year, more plants have gotten into the act. I still have the occasional tomato plant showing up but now there's the odd cucumber plant, a sunflower or two and the like.

This spring I had the idea to plant cosmos on either side of our driveway. I don't do much by the way of ornamental gardening and I would like to start doing a bit more and I thought this would be an easy way to start. Probably will be the only ornamental garden I'll do unless someone invents a day with 30 hours in it. Of course, when I put the plants in, I used my own compost. And so the most charming of the pop ups happened. A corn stalk grew right next to the cosmos. It even has a corncob. I think the effect is really cool and it does portray the essence of the DaM farm: Looks weird but it works.