I had three surprises Thursday --- one unpleasant, one pleasant, and one interesting.  Mark always takes his surprises from worst to best, so I'll write this post that way too.

The unpleasant surprise came when I pulled out the kale seeds I'd saved this spring in preparation for planting our fall crop.  The seeds had rotted in the container!  I'm usually pretty good about harvesting seeds when they're as dry as possible, then letting them sit out for another week or two in an open container to finish dehydrating (especially if I'm going to seal them in plastic instead of paper), but I clearly missed a step somewhere along the way.  Luckily, I have some 2012 seeds still kicking around for one kale variety, and have time to order more of the second variety since the whole month of August works for kale planting around here.  (I also snuck in a packet of Laciniato kale into my seed order to try yet another variety.)

The interesting surprise came in the tomato patch, where one of my yellow romas turned into an orangish roma instead.  Last year, a totally new tomato variety popped up in my garden (shown to the right), and I assumed the seed had come in with the manure.  But now that I've seen this happen two years in a row, I think I'm seeing the unusual-but-possible effects of tomato hybridization.  (Tomatoes are usually self-pollinating, so you can grow several varieties in the same patch even when saving seeds, but nature doesn't always play by the rules.)  I'm guessing this year's hybrid is probably a Yellow Roma mixed with a Japanese Black Trifele, and I like the way I get the indeterminate, vigorous nature of the Yellow Roma along with a heavier fruit set and a reddish fruit.  Last year's little red roma bred true, so I'll save some seeds of the new hybrid too and will start pondering names for my newly created tomato varieties.

The final surprise was a spring broccoli plant that produced a delicious head in August!  Usually, I rip out any spring broccoli that doesn't mature in a timely manner since summer's heat prompts the plants to produce measly heads that aren't worth the garden space.  But this broccoli was tucked away in the forest garden, so I forgot about it.  And the cool wet summer resulted in beautiful head after all!  I guess I should have been more serious about planting broccoli during this wet summer to take the place of our ailing tomatoes.  I did have an extra dozen brussels sprouts sets, though, which are now getting their feet under them between the soon-to-be-gone tomatoes:

Any surprises lately in your garden?