Blogger: North Fork Garden Oddities Pop Up in Unexpected Places

Halloween may be over, but weird stuff pops up in gardens all the time. First was an interesting genetic anomaly—a mini-pepper that turned up inside a red one we purchased locally. It had that munchkin look of something discovered in the cabbage patch. Weird, but cute. We ate it.

Then, while navigating Main Road near the Cutchogue green, I stumbled across what at first glance appeared to be wild-looking seed clusters. They were enormous for a seed pod—baseball or grapefruit sized. But it was really their neon yellow-green color that got my attention, as did their gnarly texture. It looked like someone had stuck psychidelic cloves into a bunch of oranges and tossed them on the lawn. Wow.  I could only imagine what the things could do to a power mower or landing on the hood of somebody’s car. The ground was littered with them. Most astonishing was how I missed noticing these huge things before. I drive that stretch of Route 25 on a regular basis.

So when I got home, I started googling. Near as I can tell, what I thought were super-sized seed pods turned out NOT to be seed pods after all. Best guess, they’re the fruit of the Osage-orange tree aka horse apples, hedge apples or bodarks. Though it isn’t edible, the fruit is sold as a spider and insect repellent. Apparently these 25-50 foot trees are not uncommon on the North and South Forks, though I would be hard-put to identify the tree itself based on the online photos. The Osage-orange also is prevalent in the Midwest, though I never knowingly came across it growing up in Wisconsin either. Just when you think you’ve seen it all, Mother Nature has her not-so-subtle way of saying, Not even close!  Got odd stuff growing in your yard?  Share a photo!