Don’t get too close…
That’s two of the pumpkin vines there to the right of the fig tree, and they dang well mean business. They have curly, grabby bits similar to cucumbers, but those on a pumpkin vine feel rather like 50 gauge wire:
And they grow FAST. We thought we could just let the vines go as they wanted around the base of the fig tree…
…which just goes to show we’ve never grown pumpkins before.
Mal still won’t get near enough to them to allow for a scale shot…
Which just proves he’s a SMART dog.
on 
on Apr 24th, 2009 at 8:49 pm
My next door neighbor’s daughter came home from Kindergarten one spring about 4 years ago with a little pumpkin plant that she grew from seed. They planted it on the side of the house in the 18″ wide area between the walk and the house. I think it outgrew the area in 2 days! They ended up trying to get it to grow up a trellis (they are the people who cut their lawn a minimum of once a week and have no weeds in their lawn or landscape); they couldn’t pull it out.
Every time I looked over there I had to laugh!
on Apr 25th, 2009 at 7:05 am
Mal looks like he’s lifting a leg in that photo. Just the angle, I think.
Speaking of vines. I learned a hard lesson with a passionvine last year. Do not plant one in your rose garden. Duh. Just trust me on this.
Oh, and WTH are those super-skinny hateful vines that pop up voluntarily in wilder patches of our lot? They have NO foliage; they’re just green “sticks” with deadly thorns on the sticks about every 5-6 inches or so. You have to DIG them out to get rid of them and when you do, they reveal a tuber-like deformity ball of root below the dirt. I wish I knew what they were. I’ll just keep calling them “Hateful Vines.”
Sorry I veered so far off topic here but the whole vine thing got me going.