I turn around for 10 minutes...

Okay, actually, I was gone for approximately 10 days -- not 10 minutes -- cavorting around Italy eating every flavor of gelato I could find, but still.... I returned home to finally discover what the giant plant was that had sprouted from my compost and proceeded to take over half of my garden, Audrey-Two style in recent months.

Frankly, I'd been getting a little bit irritated about the size of the mystery plant and proliferation of flowers with no visible fruit for weeks and weeks. I'd even stooped to hand-pollinating a few blossoms (no doubt scandalizing the bees with my irreverent flaunting of pistils and stamen). Nada. Then, about two days before departing for my friend Jen's wedding in Tuscany, I noticed a small, tangerine-sized swelling that looked promising....

It appears to be a pumpkin! How fun! It may not look so impressive, but that thing is the size of a well-inflated basketball. Will it be a jack-o-lantern, or end up in soup, I wonder.... Hooray for my very first (illegitimate) cucurbit of the season!

Actually, since I'm gushing about the beautiful things that have come up out back in my absence, check out the second round of strawberries,

a little bitty cucumber,

and even a tiny raspberry on my recently transplanted berry shrub!

Sorry this last one is so blurry. I apparently got a little overexcited when I discovered this very first tiny berry, and bumped the camera into some clearly inappropriate shutter speed setting. And I ate this solitary fruit before I realized my error. (What's that about me having self-control. I have it. I just don't generally exercise it around fresh fruit. Speaking of which, I noticed there have been lots of unpicked blueberries at the North Columbia Heights Green when I was there earlier doing a little weeding and watering....)