Volunteers

I've got a post about asparagus that's been simmering in the brain for a few weeks, but it will have to wait a bit. Because this is just too funny. Or tragic. I haven't decided yet.

Okay, so after a year of rest, I have decided to plant a garden again. I put out four tomatoes, zucchinis, squash and cucumbers. As with every other year I've planted, I expect to yield nothing thanks to critters and drought or whatever nature will throw at me. But I will try. And spend shit-tons of money doing so. Anyway.

So a couple of weeks ago, I'm walking the perimeter of the office building, trying to soak in a rare moment of dry weather (this is the rainiest May I have ever experienced, I believe). The caretakers of the building had put out some of that fine, dark mulch a while ago at the very back of the warehouse parking lot...why, I'm not sure. I think to stop some erosion. So I'm walking next to it and see some rather attractive volunteer plants growing from it. Attractive and familiar. Um, I think to myself, I think those are gourds of some sort!

So I'm out again today and I'm looking at these plants again. They're gorgeous. Huge leaves, growing like crazy. And big, beautiful yellow blossoms on some of them. On others? The beginnings of what looks like a zucchini on the business end of that spent bloom. Holy cow! All over Tennessee--on farms and in home gardens, plants are rotting from all the rain and suffering from the lack of sun, but here at the back of our warehouse in a neglected strip of land by a pretty nasty creek is a small collection (about seven plants) of gorgeous vegetables--flowering and fruiting early!

I don't get it. Out on another side, there are beautiful wild roses growing. In my yard, my tea rose has been decimated by aphids. There are also tons of wild blackberries blooming right now. And I harvested some delicious wild plums from the other side of the creek last summer (and plan to again). What's going on out here? Why can't I grow anything after pouring blood, sweat, and tears into my yard, but these things grow with reckless abandon? It's not fair. By the way, I am not hyperbolizing on the blood, sweat and tears. I have lost a lot of each in my yard over the years.

Anyway, so here's my question--do I harvest these things? Is office park mulch and the runoff from a warehouse parking lot any more toxic than what gets sprayed on your average supermarket vegetable? I wonder.