Unintended Germination

Vermicompost bins have a tendency to encourage seeds of all sorts to sprout.. whether you wanted them to or not. Above are birdhouse gourds that had been exposed to the elements all winter long, in fact they hadn't dried very much at all so I chucked them in the bin. They keep sprouting and I keep ripping them out.

And these would all be tomato volunteers from my evil experiments on tomato transplanting last year. I may plant them in the garden... that is if the rototiller fairies make another garden bed. I can dream...
In vermicompost you have the usual suspects.. nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus, trace minerals and the like. What is also in there is various fungus, nitrogen fixing bacteria and their other bacteria buddies, humic acids, enzymes.. and plant hormones. Roughly this is the general cliff note explanation of the hormones.. courtesy of Wikipedia cause my head is killing me to think right now.
Gibberellins- "are plant hormones that regulate growth and influence various developmental processes, including stem elongation, germination, dormancy, flowering, sex expression, enzyme induction, and leaf and fruit senescence"
Auxins- "are a class of plant growth substance and morphogens (often called phytohormone or plant hormone). Auxins have an essential role in coordination of many growth and behavioural processes in the plant life cycle."
Cytokinins- "are a class of plant growth substances (plant hormones) that promote cell division, or cytokinesis, in plant roots and shoots. They are primarily involved in cell growth and differentiation, but also affect apical dominance, axillary bud growth, and leaf senescence."

But wait Anne... they sound like they overlap or do the same thing.. well the answer is sort of and not really. Gibberellins are like a messenger service while Auxins and Cytokinins are like Yin and Yang in that they balance each other out to a degree. Auxins are the reason why roots always grow downwards no matter how the seed is planted... and why plants lean toward the light.
Ugh... let's just say light and darkness effect the photoreceptors in plants which in turn triggers the amounts of the hormones in the plants.
I promise I will explain it but I swear my head is about to explode and forming cohesive sentences trying to explain it is beyond my capabilities right now.. plus no doubt I will end up offering the long version.

More birdhouse gourds.. I am leaving them alone for a little while. They have flower buds forming and in short.. I will let them flower long enough to attract the pollinators and keep them busy until the zucchini catch up. These suckers were nailed by snow as seedlings and it didn't kill them.

Why yes... yes it did rain here for a few days and we did have a wicked chilly cold snap.

I really would love to kidnap the old Russian guy at my husband's work. He knows where to find all of the good mushrooms. I know where to find the morels and puffballs on my Mom's farm.. but out here I am not sure where to go. Chanterelle, Puffballs, morels and porchini are about all I can identify. Granted I do have someone else double check the porchini just in case.
Whenever there is precipitation + a big fluctuation in temperature it seems to trigger many fungus to set out fruit. Mushrooms are the fruiting body of fungus. There is a Mycological Society not far from here.. but their days to go always seem to clash with when I have time open. One day... one day.. it is on my list of things I want to do.
I am off to bed.. tomorrow I will trade some peas, radish, spinach and herbs for a few cans of cheap beer so I can make some slug traps. There was a recent hatch out and I rounded up over 60 of them early this evening.. some were small enough to fit 2 inside this o.