A leper can't change his socks...

Now, there are some folks out there in interweb land who have, on occasions, doubted my levels of idiocy. Despite my protestations, they have seemingly become so deluded (or drunk) that they believe I have some sort of horticultural skill. However, today I stand here (okay, I am sitting, but you understand what I mean) to show you all that the old adage, "Once an idiot, always an idiot" stands true. As my old Dad used to say (before they popped him into a straitjacket and took him to the pickle factory), a leper can't change his socks.

Now, you might recall my problems with cucurbits. I started out with a dozen cucumbers, squash, courgettes and pumpkins, and from that merry band of 48 plants I ended up with the not so maginificent seven, which were all dying. I even vowed to ignore cucurbits for good, and had decided that the space they took up would become rhubarbsville next year.

I suffered with neck rot (don't be childish, I mean on the seedlings), damping off, stem decay, crispy leaf and slow death. Everyone laughed, because apprently cucurbits grow themselves. The magnificent seven became six, then five. Bloody cucurbits, eh?

The other morning I saw something bright yellow in the garden. To be truthful, I felt relieved. Here was another cucurbit disease that would finish the lot off, and I wouldn't have to feign concern for them any more. But no, it was a bloody flower. A flower? Yes, a flower, and behind it was a squash.

"Shit the bed!" I exclaimed. Then I counted. It wasn't one squash. There were about 20, very small but perfectly formed. I checked the one surviing cucumber. It had fruit, again tiny, but they were there. The courgettes? Well, whilst I was looking elsewhere (probably at nudey women), it had taken off, grown through the beans and up the trellis, and is chucking out fruit like a greengrocer who has over-ordered. The pumpkins are staring to fruit too.

Now, you might think, "what's idiotic about things growing?", and here is the rub. I was going to rip them all out. Mrs IG went to see her relatives for a few days, and the job was on my list. Instead, I spent those few days fitting a new exhaust to the green machine, and drinking too much whilst watching the world cup.

Cucurbits are beyond me, well and truly beyond me. They are a law unto themselves. Sometimes, late at night, I swear I can hear them mocking me...