What are these plants?

Steev

My wife and I decided to attempt gardening this year. We rented a plot from the local community gardens and have planted onions, carrots, tomatoes, spinach, and various other things. We also planted some marigolds and nasturtiums to try and help ward off pests. The marigolds are coming up nicely, but only one of the nasturtiums we planted has shown up.

In the same row where we planted nasturtiums, two other plants showed up that didn't look like the typical weeds. We suspect that at least one of them is a vegetable of some kind, probably from whoever had this plot last season. Anyone recognize these? In case it matters, we are in central Illinois.

Plant 1:

This is the one we think most likely to be a vegetable.

Plant 2:

I'm thinking this is a weed, but we want to be sure before pulling it.

knitdan

First one could be some type of squash, second one might be chard.

Or they're both weeds or one of them is.

Onions are looking good!

WiseManTobes

That second one almost looks like a Rhubarb, if so keep that, stuff so tasty, mmm strawberry rhubarb pie.

ceres

The first one looks like a squash to me. If it is that fucker will take over completely if you let it.

bowen

yeah first one is some sort of squash/pumpkin for sure

Steev

My wife also thought it was a squash of some kind after using some plant identification app a few days ago, but wasn't sure. Glad to hear it confirmed by a few more people. If it is a squash, that's cool...although too bad it's so close to the front of our garden plot. It's probably less than a foot away from the fence we put up.

knitdan wrote: »

First one could be some type of squash, second one might be chard.

Or they're both weeds or one of them is.

Onions are looking good!

Thanks! We've got onions growing in another spot too, and they're doing fine, but the ones in this picture are much bigger.

If we do this next year, we'll probably make use of the free manure donated by a local farmer. This year we just used bags of compost bought from a store to renew the soil.

Steev

Update: I also posted the photo of the plant we all think looks like a squash on Facebook and a coworker of mine thinks it's a weed she remembers picking a lot as a child called velvetleaf.

bsjezz

not sure what that second one is, but it's definitely neither chard nor rhubarb, which don't branch off like that. i reckon it's a weed also.

bowen

there's no purple tinge in the first one, it's probably not velvetleaf

although maybe, you could always yank it out and see what's on the end

bwanie

the leaves don't seem to be especially velvety either.

Steev

The leaves actually do have a velvety feel to them.

We're still going to let it grow a little more, just to be sure.

Elvenshae

My immediate thought on the first one was cucumber or a squash, so, yeah.

Skunty

Alternatively use the old allotment adage that anything growing where it shouldn't be is a weed and yank both those interlopers out. Having one random plant that you don't know the heritage of growing in a place you could be sowing is a waste!

Don't worry about the squash being fenced in, it'll grow straight up a fence given half the chance.

Onions looking good btw!

Bremen

I might be totally crazy, but I don't think the first one is a squash. The leaves are the right shape, but the stem isn't; squash plants tend to have thick, prickly stems, with lots emerging from a central base. I'd say it looks more like a bush bean plant.

The second one looks like a weed, but that really just means it might be a plant I haven't grown.

Can't hurt to let them grow and see what happens, though.

bowen

also, you may consider growing broccoli and lettuce since your soil is clay

Steev

Skunty wrote: »

Alternatively use the old allotment adage that anything growing where it shouldn't be is a weed and yank both those interlopers out. Having one random plant that you don't know the heritage of growing in a place you could be sowing is a waste!

Don't worry about the squash being fenced in, it'll grow straight up a fence given half the chance.

Onions looking good btw!

Thanks! We're expecting a lot of failure since this is our first attempt at gardening, so we're leaving the plant in there for a little longer. We've already seen barely any of our garlic come up (because apparently we were supposed to plant those in November, but the garden plots aren't available in March, so oh well). Our spinach is a pretty big failure too. Like I said, next year we'll do better and probably use that free manure.

There are specific rules we have to abide by since it's an organic community garden area.

WiseManTobes

Now I'm curious @Ceres has an "Identify this plant" thread ever popped up where the answer ended up being " Ya you've totally got a crop of marijuana there"

ceres

Not to my knowledge but I would definitely laugh.

finral

That first picture definitely looks like Velvetleaf (Abutilon theophrasti). It could be something else, but velvetleaf is a fairly common crop weed across much of the midwest and other areas.
Edit: the stems aren't always tinged purple, and this may change as the plant grows.

WiseManTobes

The second one was so rhubarb similar it's been bugging me, so at first I was looking up varieties of rhubarb, seeing if it was a strain I was unfamiliar with.

Then had the thought and googled " Weeds that look like rhubarb" and led me to this


Burdock weed, through most stages of growth is very similar to Rhubarb, and it's leaves are pretty close ( The leaves on the second one were why I was wondering if was a variant, because was missing the nooks rhubarb usually has)

Steev

We ended up pulling out the rhubarb-like plant last night.

I just read a blog post the other day from a person who raised what thought was a melon plant in a 5-gallon bucket, only to discover when it went to seed that it was velvetleaf. And that the seeds it produces can stay viable for 50 years (although I knew that bit since it was in that link I posted about the plant).

Steev

We visited the garden for the first time since Monday night. We had a lot of rain since then. The plant got a little bigger:


Still not going to pull it just yet, though.


Meanwhile, a new challenger has appeared on the other side of the garden:

This one actually looks a lot more similar to a bunch of plants we saw in someone else's garden. Maybe it's something, but it's probably a weed.

Artereis

We had something that looked like that first plant going in the backyard at my old place in Virginia. It ended up being like 6 feet tall but never produced anything. You'll probably just want to get rid of it.

Looking around on Google makes me think it might be an Empress Tree sapling.

Tofystedeth

WiseManTobes wrote: »

The second one was so rhubarb similar it's been bugging me, so at first I was looking up varieties of rhubarb, seeing if it was a strain I was unfamiliar with.

Then had the thought and googled " Weeds that look like rhubarb" and led me to this


Burdock weed, through most stages of growth is very similar to Rhubarb, and it's leaves are pretty close ( The leaves on the second one were why I was wondering if was a variant, because was missing the nooks rhubarb usually has)

Burdock root is pretty yummy.

Steev

The Plant That May Be Velvetleaf is now slightly taller than knee-high:


And still we haven't pulled it. My wife remains convinced that it's some sort of squash. Meanwhile, my coworker who identified it as velvetleaf told me she used to use the leaves as toilet paper in the field.

knitdan

If it's a squash I would expect some sort of flowers to begin showing up soon, and that should make identification easier.

bowen

velvetleaf also flowers

you can eat the leaves of velvetleaf IIRC, so it's not an entire waste

bowen

I think, however, you should probably pull it @SteevL

It's growing tall, this is not common with gourds. That is a sign of velvetleaf. Gourds are also not tubers, you would be seeing some indication by now, I think.

If velvetleaf flowers, that garden area is fucked, tbh.

Fuzzy Cumulonimbus Cloud

That is definitely velvetleaf
the true leaves alternate

bwanie

y that's looking less and less pumpkinny everytime i see a new pic.

Darkewolfe

If it's velvetleaf, it'd be more polite to your neighbor gardens to pull it.

Steev

Thanks, everyone! I showed my wife a few of your recent posts about it being velvetleaf last night, and I think that convinced her. We pulled it this morning, and it appears it was just in time. There were some flower buds.

Also, it pulled out of the ground surprisingly easily.

Fuzzy Cumulonimbus Cloud

SteevL wrote: »

Thanks, everyone! I showed my wife a few of your recent posts about it being velvetleaf last night, and I think that convinced her. We pulled it this morning, and it appears it was just in time. There were some flower buds.

Also, it pulled out of the ground surprisingly easily.

And now we definitely know there wasn't a secret squash!

ArbitraryDescriptor

I thought that looked like these huge 7' tall weeds I'd see in long abandoned yards. Wikipedia suggests that is not an unreasonable size for velvetleaf. So, perhaps so!

It also suggests making an omelette out of it.

Velvetleaf has been grown in China since around 2000 BCE for its strong, jute-like fibre. The leaves are edible, stir-fried or in omelette.

Got any eggs?

bowen

I think some people dice up the velvetleaf leaves and mix them in with omelettes in some cuisine

so, I mean, still a crop technically

Steev

Eh, we just threw it into the community pile of discarded plants and weeds shortly after I took that picture. Oh well. I don't think we were particularly interested in eating it.

Mr Khan

Hi thread. I was wondering if we're in here identifying plants if you could tell me whether this is corn or just some kind of grass?

Steev

Based on the corn I've seen growing in one of my neighbor's plots, that appears to be just grass. I'm not 100% sure about it, but I do live in a town surrounded by cornfields.

Mr Khan

SteevL wrote: »

Based on the corn I've seen growing in one of my neighbor's plots, that appears to be just grass. I'm not 100% sure about it, but I do live in a town surrounded by cornfields.

Folks on facebook seem to agree, damn. Thought i was going to get lucky two years in a row. Last year i had two or three stalks grow in that very plot, but i'm pretty sure no corn was left over. I've got a bad crabgrass problem across all of my plots, but this particular stalk looked different.

bowen

maybe it's a squash! (j/k looks like grass to me)

Steev

So now I'm wondering about something we actually did plant in our garden! Back in early May, we planted two pepper seedlings we bought from a farmer's market. They were labeled as jalapeños, and they shared a 2-compartment seedling tray. One of them started bearing fruit recently:

And it looks like a perfectly normal jalapeño!

The other one, though...well, it's definitely a pepper plant, but they don't look like jalapeños to me:

Any ideas?