Photographs of this planting through the 2026 season, oldest first.
The photographs
Week of 1 JuneFive or six cups on 5 June, each holding the same plant at exactly the same stage — the nearest with its first true leaf fully open and a second still rolled behind it, both held above a pair of fat pale cotyledons.Week of 1 JunePotting up on 5 June, one seedling in the middle cup with two thick cotyledons and a single lobed true leaf just clear of them, the cup beside it holding nothing but two cut pale stems, and the photographer's shoe toes in frame.Week of 22 JuneOn 25 June, leggy young vines running sideways out of their cups, stems clothed thickly in stiff white bristles and no tendril yet gripping anything, with tight clusters of hairy buds at the nodes and one showing a first sliver of yellow petal.Week of 29 JuneA seedling on 29 June in a red party cup set straight on the ground, its scalloped leaves puckered and still beaded from watering on stems thick with stiff pale bristles, three yellow flowers open at once and its siblings in cups behind.Week of 6 JulySeedlings on 9 July sprawling out of red plastic party cups on soft stems bristly with white hairs, their leaves shallow-lobed and fringed with hair along every edge — one yellow flower half open with no swelling behind it, and the tendrils only starting.Week of 6 JulyA young cucurbit on 12 July sprawling flat over a mound of dark soil, its ten leaves a pale yellow-green beside the much darker plant behind — two small yellow stars open low on the stems, nothing swelling behind either, no tendrils yet.Week of 13 JulyA young cucurbit on 17 July set into a hole cut in the ground fabric, four or five shallow yellow stars open along the near runner in bristly green cups, one long bare tendril trailing off, everything beaded with dew in flat early light.Week of 24 AugustA young fruit on 27 August still carrying its shriveled yellow flower at the blossom end, round and dull green mottled darker, its skin covered all over in short bristly hairs, with lobed vine leaves and coiling tendrils above it.
