Name That Staulk!

Never discouraged by my mis-attempt at growing tomatoes last summer, I decided this spring to plant some dried pepper seeds that I had carefully collected from an organic red pepper I prepared last winter.  I enlisted everyone’s help to water the seedlings and to all of our delight two wonderful pepper plants began to grow!

Never having seen a pepper plant before, I anxiously awaited the tiny buds.  But my pepper plant just kept growing taller and taller each week.  The stalk was strong, certainly capable of holding up a good size bell pepper, yet no buds even hinted at an appearance.

Then one afternoon as Richard and I were taking a drive around the neighborhood we stopped by an empty field that was over grown with weeds and wildflowers.  There was a tall rock wall in front of us and as I looked out the car window and squinted into the sun, I could see the tops of some very familiar leaves peeking over the stone fence.  “Does that look like our pepper plant in the backyard?” I puzzled to my husband.  With a deep chuckle Richard agreed.  As we looked around a bit more, we could see many pepper plants all throughout the abandoned overgrown green belt.

No there wouldn’t be any organic red peppers from my dharma pot this summer.  But as always, life’s lessons on the illusion of control continue to amuse me.  Oh, and incase I forgot to get the point of the cosmic humor, a few weeks later some tiny yellow flowers appear at the top of the mystery weed.

Note: If any of my blog subscribers know what this California Wildflower might be … Please post a comment!  I’ve been unable to find a Google answer as yet.  Then again, searching California and Weed does offer up a very different tangent of information.