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Volunteers

W

wordwiz

I was outside transplpoanting some peppers and had a walk around the garden. Found bunches of volunteers I had not seen before.

There are more than a dozen scallions and about four mustard plants that had came up weeks ago. I'm not a fan of either, plus the mustard has gone to seed in a hurry. Two great finds were volunteer potato plants - and both are close to six inches tall. I don't know if I'll let them go or not. I've already planted seven pounds of seed potatoes, plus I have 10 containers I am growing them in. By February, they are not great to eat, except maybe as fried.

About six weeks ago I turned my compost pile and started a new one on one side, leaving the other side empty. I was adding weeds to it today - I'm probably the only person who lets weeds grow until I need their space - and guess what was growing in the unused space? Fifteen tomato plants and five stalks of mustard - that are getting bushy and leafy instead of leggy as the earlier ones did.

These plants will not need to be hardened off and in two weeks time should be large enough to transplant.

Christmas in May!

Mike
 
I always get volunteer tomatoes and tomatillos but I treat them as weeds. I actually can't stand tomatillos anymore but can't get rid of them.
I let weeds grow too but try to get them before they flower and form seeds or they'll be everywhere.
 
POTAWIE, I am growing tomatillos for the first time never had one before but I heard they were good in salsa, why don't you like them anymore?

Dale
 
I grew the green and purple tomatillos for years and really tried to like them but just couldn't. Kind of bitter and sticky too, but also kind of cool looking.
 
Potawie,

I treated the cherry tomatoes as weeds last year but I figure I have nothing invested in these plants so I might as well use them. Who knows, maybe a plant will grow Rom-a-beef-steaks!

Mike
 
Its always hard to kill off the volunteers but over the years it seems to get easier. Some of my biggest pumpkins were volunteers but I never let them grow anymore and I don't leave them in the garden for the deer to eat anymore. I've also seen many pumpkins growing in strange areas too, likely spread by deer poop.
 
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