The Fink Farm Dirt

In every garden, there are two types of plants: the ones you planted and the ones that just jump out of the dirt and yell, “Surprise!” The latter leave you wondering, “What IS that?” It might be a weed, a tree seedling, or something that fell into the dirt from last season’s plantings and germinated. It might have been dropped in via wild bird poop, carried on the fur of a rabbit, a possum, a cat or a mouse — or blown in on the wind.

This summer, the mottled umbrella-like leaves of an butternut squash plant have popped up on the west end of Fink Farms. It's interesting since we never planted butternut squash. In fact, we have never had butternut squash in the farm. But we have composted butternut squash remains, and we have had other volunteer plants from using compost. (The ever-helpful Google Extension Service offered up an anecdote about a man who scattered his rich homemade compost over his front yard -- and ended up with butternut squashes shading his St. Augustine grass. True? You tell me . . . ) It's hard to keep a compost pile running hot when you're feeding it out of one and a quarter kitchens. (Karen is the one because she just has to take a short walk from her kitchen to the compost pile; I'm the quarter, because composting for me requires collecting decaying veggies, putting it in my car and driving it over to Karen's. For awhile, it got to be such a problem that I was freez...