A blooming broccoli

On May 1 in 2011, I dumped a jar of broccoli sprouts into my deck planter before Lindsay and I left on a five month backpacking trip.  When we got back, two of the sprouts had survived to become a few inches tall.  I thought they would never make it through winter, but one of them proved me wrong despite being covered in snow and ice at times.  This spring the single surviving broccoli grew like crazy and is now four feet tall and blooming.