We were digging up the area where the bee hives were and came upon this monster: Any idea wot thuh eh-ow idiz? More to come.
It's clearly a dead garden gnome. It needs to be buried again with a stone. Name to add - ''unknown garden helper'' I would keep the new resting place away from prying eyes if I were you, otherwise you'll end up with a full cemetery and no room for veggies.
I quite agree with Testers, a Garden Gnome. But, I hear they are like possums, great at playing dead. I bet if you tickle him, you'll see a twitch. So you'll need to figure out if he's a helpful Gnome or a malevolent one. Important distinction. Maybe Google that for help.
The private resting place of the Kraken's secret love child. Best not disturb it too much....you live quite close to the ocean...
That's the trouble with Gnomes, had the same problem with this Gnomes Graveyard On the other hand, I might suspect a Bryony root
Yikes...I looked that up - .... "A poisonous plant that is a purgative and will give you terrible diarrhoea. " ( As the Pepto Bismal commercial is now her earworm.....)
Bryonia dioica. Well, Tetters you are spot on. I grew these from seed and when I planted my plantlets along the rack there, they looked like little parsnips, shorter than the length of my hand. Over the years they began disappearing. I finally discovered it was a huge brown rat that was digging down in the winter and eating the roots. So, this is the last of this wonderful plant. It was such a shame to have to remove this popular “pollinator plant”, but there are some ladies up the way that have it filling their garden fencing. I am clearing this patch to do more veggies. Before the bees, it was used for rotated veg so the patch will return to its original purpose. I have a bitter-sweet feeling about it all. But all that Hx aside, again congrats on your investigations and correct conclusion. Well done you. And at the end of the excision: Well, I cannot find the rest of the piccies that I took and downloaded. But as the Bride said, there isn’t a lot more you can show and not be boring. Chuckle.
Thanks for the congrats Sjoerd, but it was actually Zigs who was the clever one - I really thought it was a dead and buried garden gnome I believe in fairies too! It is great though to have a puzzle or two to solve, and a good way of learning something new as well - so do please keep 'em coming.
I thought it might be Bryony is also known as Devil's Turnips I remember a few years back, Ray Mears noticed the similarity between this European root and the Australian Cheeky Yam. This had been eaten by the Aborigines after processing to remove the dangerous calcium oxalates. He and his mate boiled up and washed our Bryony roots the same way the Australians did and then sent it off to a lab to get checked out. (They didn't eat it just for the telly program ) The processing had removed the oxalates so it probably would have been ok to eat. Don't go eating one without processing, not if you've got kidneys
An interesting note is that here in Nederland there is a solitary bee whose only food source is the Bryonia. We call it, “Heggenrankbij” (Andrena florea). The female takes nectar and the male takes the pollen.