Image from a corner of Sandra Knauf’s compost pile, August 2017, featuring a surprise potato plant.
From the Compost Pile
Voluptuous vines mix in
with basil stems and potatoes,
sprouting from last winter’s seeds.
We come from something, some egg,
virus, dirt, but in my vegetable bed
this vigorous survivor fittest
tangling-with-everything
does not look like any melon
I ate last summer. Its squashes
are blander orange butternuts.
The what I grew is not what I knew.
—Tricia Knoll
Tricia Knoll is a contented gardener come late August. Four harvests of basil mixed up as pesto. The Romas about to explode bright red very soon. Her most recent book is Broadfork Farm, a series of love poems for the creatures, family, and gardens at a small organic farm in Trout Lake, Washington. In a time of urban disturbance, retreating to the farm brings a measure of peace.
florasforum 
‘The what I grew is not what I knew’…love that line! And your ‘surprise’ potato plant in the compost 😀
I love that line too! I was hoping the potato plant was a sweet potato, and I would move it inside, but, alas, it was just a regular spud. 😉