carrot juice is murder

I am a garden pacifist. I know in my head that tough love in the garden reaps the best rewards -- but I hate to put it onto practice.
Tomatoes need to be pruned, ruthlessly, or they won't produce; I let My Guy do that dirty deed.
Things that don't thrive should, by rights, be culled and replaced with more suitable plants; I leave them be and hope for a miracle.
And so when an enthusiastic little volunteer appeared in an otherwise empty spot in the garden I decided to let it grow! It was a vine of some description -- looking very much like a cucumber, zucchini, squash or melon -- that was probably a compost bin survivor. It grew right next to, then around, then overtop of, a little sign I had planted to indicate that the onion-type things planted there were of an unknown variety (leeks? scallions? walla wallas?) after a grouping of seedlings lost their label. It seemed serendipitous; the sign reads "mystery":

It continued to grow and bloom until yesterday when I realized that I had better check on its progress as it was starting to encroach on the corn plants growing at the other end of the garden...

It had become quite a tangle of leaves, blooms and twining tentacles, but the only fruit I could find in the twisting mass was this:

Not very interesting from a culinary perspective. Especially since this little guy was the only one on the whole plant. Looks a bit like a calamari for a vegetarian, though. 

In the end, I decided it was an interesting photography subject -- I took a few photos and bam! into the green bin it went. Sorry big guy!