My daughter and I had an impromptu science lesson today!
You just never know when a teaching opportunity will arise!
You will notice that most homeschooling parents use a garden for science lessons.
I am no different. From the very beginning, we have tended life out of pips and earth.
Over the years, our efforts seemed futile. Our harvests have mostly been a handful of peas, some rock hard radishes, a single cantaloupe, stunted cabbage, and countless seeds that never rise out of the ground. We try anyway. With each year, we have modified our methods to learn for our mistakes of the past. This year, I planted our zucchini in the side bed that receives full sun. I went crazy and planted the entire packet of seeds. I love zucchini (it's best sliced on pizza). I would eat zucchini all the time if I could. This morning, I had a horrifying discovery. One of my zucchini plants had a yellow foam like puff surrounding its' main stem. My daughter noticed it first. I turned to give her my attention (I was weeding the sad looking cucumber half of the bed). That's when I saw it. I gasped, ran into the house for my phone, took a pic, tried not to hyperventilate while I quickly texted a photo to my farmer dad. WHAT IS ON MY ZUCCHINI??? My text yelled. I'm pretty sure I woke my husband up with all the door banging and such. Just look at my poor plant.
My dear husband googled for the answer. (I was grossed out and desperately needed a shower).
This yellow puffy stuff that resembles foam insulation, is a eukaryotic organism from the kingdom protista. It can be a single cell organism or can combine into multicellular reproductive structures.
Other common names and misnomers are: FUNGUS, SLIME MOLD and DOG VOMIT.
I decided to take pictures of its changes during the day. Here is what it looked like a few hours later.
Still gross.
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