I feel I should make a confession. It is this: I have made no real attempt to keep up with the weeds this year. When they were young, yes, and even now I grab at fistfuls in the paths and yank clumps of grass too close to a plant, and pull up the weeds that are so tall they’re going to flower…but mainly, I’m letting them go. Especially when it comes to the paths. Ideally I’d lay down newspaper and then wood chips, or (in my wildest dreams) stone and sand, but we don’t really have the money for that until fall, and it’s so hot and full of mosquitos, and I’m so lazy.

I went into the garden today to pick cucumbers and beets (I pulled all of them, and planted new ones, because after reading Christa’s account of her beet harvest, I was afraid they’d suffer if I left them) and replenish the carrot bag in the fridge, and harvest my first two scallop zucchini. I’d thought they would be flatter, like discs, but I like their funny acorn shapes too. Also my first potimarron are getting big.

Then, between the All-Blue potatoes and the French Fingerling potatoes, I saw this.

This used to be the space where the surviving onions were. They may still be there, but I doubt it; it’s been overrun by the potatoes. I didn’t realize potato plants would get this big and long and pushy; the Irish Cobblers didn’t last year. (They did this year. I guess I didn’t plant them in a good spot last year.) Anyway, back when it was still open to the air, I did notice a carrot-like plant there, and figured that was exactly what it was, a carrot seed that had been dropped there by the wind and sprouted, so I left it.

But it can’t be a carrot now. I don’t think it’s Queen Anne’s lace either, because they’re both biennial, and last year that was the Hutterite bean patch (they’re doing very well in this year’s location, by the by) and I would have noticed a carrot-like plant. Also I dug up everything when I added compost. Also I haven’t seen Queen Anne’s lace around here anywhere, though I suppose that doesn’t have to stop it.

So I don’t know what it is. I suppose I should pull it, since it can’t possibly yield me food, and I don’t know that I’d save the seeds since I don’t know what it is. On the other hand, it’s not hurting anything, and I’m interested to see what the flowers look like, if they’re pretty or if they’re like the parsley flowers, tight and green and boring. (And ALL OVER MY GARDEN. I am going to have so many flat-leaf parsley seeds at the end of this season. Anyone who wants some, e-mail me. Even people who’ve offered to trade with me and then never sent their seeds. No, not them.) On the other other hand (call me Zaphod Beeblebrox), if I pull it now, I’ll probably spare myself the energy I would otherwise spend wondering about it.

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