I put one of my tomato starts in a pot a couple of weeks ago just to give its roots room to stretch out and get a bigger head start. (Side note to Ellen: this is the pot your apricot seedling was in.) The idea was that I have more than enough and a single tomato plant in its own soil would be easily giftable to those with little room or gardening experience.

Apparently the squirrels had buried one of last year’s sunflower seeds in there.

The nights have been in the 40s and even with the pot in a protected spot near the house, the tomato’s been waiting for warmth.

But that sunflower that popped up has no problem with cool weather and is racing ahead–and I haven’t been able to make myself remove one or the other. In my experience, trying to gently pull a tomato out with a bit of soil around the roots is how you kill it; the sunflower’s roots are probably already big enough to damage the tomato if I tried to pull it out.

Hey, let the tomato grow up with a built-in live stake! Right?

Oh wait. I bought seeds for eight foot tall sunflowers for this year but last year’s were mere 18″ ones. Oops.

Well, at the current rate of tomato growth that would be about right. Though I do expect there to be a summer this year.

Flowers and butterflies and birds (and squirrels)? Or tomatoes?