There must be a patch of northern hemisphere in my front yard. Maybe a magical portal to the other side of the planet that my plants sneak through to lap up some Summer sunshine when I'm not looking.
Last Winter... or was it the Winter before? I can't remember, was one of them, a random pumpkin vine appeared in my front yard. I let it grow to see what it would do, because it appeared in Autumn, when pumpkin plants are supposed to be dying off for the year. Not this one, it grew all Winter long despite me never watering it, getting stepped on and damaged, I didn't bother dealing with the fungal infection it suffered after its leaves got all wet and frosty, and being cold there wasn't many pollinators around, and yet eventually in Spring it gave me two perfectly good little pumpkins.
From mid to late Summer, I harvested a heap of potatoes I'd grown in large pots. I got potatoes, but they weren't anything to write about. I considered not bothering to grow that variety again, ate the ones that were good to eat, and sat the pots with their potting mix in them aside for dealing with later on. They were located in the front yard by the side fence. A few weeks ago, I went to get some of the large pots to put some plants in, to find two of the pots were each growing a new potato plant. Evidently, despite sifting the soil, I'd missed a tiny little pea sized potato in each pot. Needing the pots more than potentially diseased off-season potato plants, I emptied them out to find fully formed ready to harvest potatoes that were larger and much higher quality than the ones I'd deliberately grown and harvested at the right time of year.
In late autumn/early winter I trimmed back my capsicum plants and tucked them out of harm's way, sheltered between the larger pots that my trees are in, in a corner of my front yard. I started moving the trees to a different section of the yard this week, and the day before yesterday I got around to the little dormant capsicum plants... they've grown new leaves, gotten larger, and have capsicums on them again. Large, green, healthy capsicums. I know it's been a bit unseasonally warm so far this winter, we've only had one morning of frost so far, but it's still not exactly warm weather. It's the middle of winter!
Who else has grown something completely in the wrong season, or in the wrong climate zone, with surprisingly good results?
Last Winter... or was it the Winter before? I can't remember, was one of them, a random pumpkin vine appeared in my front yard. I let it grow to see what it would do, because it appeared in Autumn, when pumpkin plants are supposed to be dying off for the year. Not this one, it grew all Winter long despite me never watering it, getting stepped on and damaged, I didn't bother dealing with the fungal infection it suffered after its leaves got all wet and frosty, and being cold there wasn't many pollinators around, and yet eventually in Spring it gave me two perfectly good little pumpkins.
From mid to late Summer, I harvested a heap of potatoes I'd grown in large pots. I got potatoes, but they weren't anything to write about. I considered not bothering to grow that variety again, ate the ones that were good to eat, and sat the pots with their potting mix in them aside for dealing with later on. They were located in the front yard by the side fence. A few weeks ago, I went to get some of the large pots to put some plants in, to find two of the pots were each growing a new potato plant. Evidently, despite sifting the soil, I'd missed a tiny little pea sized potato in each pot. Needing the pots more than potentially diseased off-season potato plants, I emptied them out to find fully formed ready to harvest potatoes that were larger and much higher quality than the ones I'd deliberately grown and harvested at the right time of year.
In late autumn/early winter I trimmed back my capsicum plants and tucked them out of harm's way, sheltered between the larger pots that my trees are in, in a corner of my front yard. I started moving the trees to a different section of the yard this week, and the day before yesterday I got around to the little dormant capsicum plants... they've grown new leaves, gotten larger, and have capsicums on them again. Large, green, healthy capsicums. I know it's been a bit unseasonally warm so far this winter, we've only had one morning of frost so far, but it's still not exactly warm weather. It's the middle of winter!
Who else has grown something completely in the wrong season, or in the wrong climate zone, with surprisingly good results?
