Squash

I'm being over run with squash. Kabocha, also known as Japanese pumpkin, to be precise. It all started last winter when I went on a kabocha kick. Buy a couple at the farmer's market, a few times a week cut one open, scoop out the seeds, throw seeds into the composte bin, bake, roast or steam for a sweet and earthy side dish. Yum!

Well, kabocha season came and went. I've moved on to swiss chard if you must know. Spring planting season arrived and I pulled out the crab grass from the garden plots and enriched the soil with some of that clean, nutritious composte from my bin that the red wiggler worms made from my fruit and vegetable scraps.

I sprinkled a little composte on the potted plants, too. Also on the sad looking ficus trees in the big planter out bag. The potted meyer lemon and key lime loved it, they've been flowering like nobody's business. The ficus trees perked up immediately. As long as you don't sprinkle too much and cause nitrogen burn, they are happy. The seeds I planted are sprouting up nicely. Kale, onions, cilantro, strawberries that are already producing, tomatoes, sweet peas and radishes.

And something else is sprouting up, too. Kabocha. Everywhere I look, squash plants are popping up. Apparently the red wrigglers left the seeds in tact, where they tucked away in the warm decomposing scraps and waited to make it to the sunshine. I also have a few tomatoes coming up that I didn't plant and what looks like sunflower sprouts.

And that is why everyone should composte. It's like watching magic happen. The scraps I would have thrown in a plastic garbage bag, into the bin out back to end up in fly infested landfill somewhere are turning into living, growing, edible things! And the way it seems with all those kabocha plants, I might have to open my own stand at the farmer's market!