Back Garden Giants

I thought the castor beans in the front of the house were huge until I happen to really look at the back forty. This is a garden where nothing...literally nothing, is done to grow things. We pile leaves about 4 foot high every fall and in the spring...when the leaves are packed down to about 2 feet high, we spread them apart and put in plants. Mostly my neighbor and I put in tomatoes.  We dont weed  and only water maybe twice if it is 3 weeks or more without rain. The canna you see are volunteers. Right down the middle we pile the year end weeds and tomato plants and viney squashes if we planted them. We don't get much yield from viny stuff cuz too many garden critters chew on the squash or melons. But the tomatoes grow like gangbusters. I also throw left over canna on the pile that I dont want to keep along with the other stuff I chop down in the fall. I guess the warmth of the decomposing stuff keeps the canna from dying out. They usually dont winter over in the ground.

This year I planted some castor beans and some voo doo plants. The voo doo didnt do well. I will take pics of them later. But OH MY...the castor beans must be well over 10 feet tall. I gauge that cuz I am 5 foot and they seem about twice that or more in the picture. Don't' forget to click on the pics to see full size.  Maybe keeping the bottom leaves pulled off forced them taller.