Rogue Seeds

When Javier and I returned from our trip to Tucson, our garden looked more or less like this:

Lettuces predominate, and these are from seeds I planted last August when my dad and Javier helped me build my little 4'x8' raised bed.  What did not seem to magically sprout were the seeds I haphazardly pushed in to the soil hours before taking off on our cross-country adventure in May. So those hardy lettuce seeds hibernated through the mild winter in the warmth of a raised bed, an extra layer of compost, and the DIY mulch of fallen leaves Javier piled on throughout the more bitter months. To me, the taste of these lettuces is reflective of their hardiness: they are, to me, a bitter green I can not abide by, much like I can't abide by other, usually more darker greens, like arugula, and mustard and turnip greens.  Javier, however, picks the leaves, plies them with our homemade dressing or soaks them in vinegar and then haves at it.

Though the additional lettuce, beet, chard, spinach and carrot seeds that I lazily planted in May did not take root, we do have rogue seeds that have turned in to lovely, mysterious plants.  I believe these seeds, which now appear to be a jalapeno plant and a cucumber vine, came from our compost, the very compost that protected the lettuce all winter.  

Again feeling like a lazy gardener, I bought some starter plants when we returned: a crook neck squash, a zucchini, an heirloom tomato, and a yellow pear tomato, and nestled them in next to our rogue plants, which you can see below. If anyone is better at identifying plants than me, I am open to suggestions until the flowers bear fruit and reveal the answer to the mystery.

Early shot of the rogue plants

Shot from the rogue plant today with lovely climbing vine