Gardening Jones

Article published in Connections Magazine by J. Hugenbruch, Master Gardener:

Garden ‘Volunteers’

   Now, I’m not talking about the neighbors who are more than willing to help you get rid of a few extra tomatoes. I’m referring to the name given to plants (other than weeds, that is) that decide to grow in your garden without having been planted. If you are an avid gardener and composter you probably know what I mean.

   Here’s how it goes:

For months you diligently kept your vegetable scraps, crushed egg shells and coffee grounds in your compost bin or pile. You have put in your grass clippings and fall leaves. With great care you have turned your collection until that ‘black gold’ was ready. Late in the fall or early in the spring you gently add your beautiful homemade compost to a vegetable or flower garden bed. Later that season you will be weeding and suddenly see a familiar, but unexpected plant. Hmmm, is it a weed or not? It can be difficult at times to tell, as many weeds survive because they resemble more desirable plants. Just let it grow a bit and see what you find. You may be surprised by a ‘volunteer’ plant.

   I have had many different volunteers over the years. The best cantaloupe I ever tasted came from a rose bed. A Halloween night prank led to a wonderful crop of pumpkins the following fall. Not all of my volunteers came from composted beds, though. Cherry tomatoes particularly like to reseed themselves, as do many of their relatives. So do dill and chives. For years I thought dill was a perennial plant. Any herb grower will tell you to keep your sweet marjoram in containers for this reason.  Many vegetables and annual flowers will reseed themselves, particularly where you don’t want them. Even birds, enjoying some summer raspberries, for example, can add volunteer plants to your garden. A few years ago I had a birdhouse gourd plant that grew up a pine tree. One of the gourds dried and fell into the garden that winter, only to produce numerous plants the following season. Those were the best gourds I ever grew (or didn’t grow). I have watched in wonder as a beautiful wildflower not usually seen in this area, called ‘Velvet Leaf’, grew and bloomed last summer in a newly built high tower in my backyard. The seed had most likely laid dormant in the top soil I had purchased, and grew under the warm and humid conditions given to it. It was a fabulous once in a lifetime occurrence for me.

   Other volunteers of course can come from plants left in the garden to winter over, whether intentionally or not. I almost always find that I missed a few potatoes when harvesting the year before, and get the benefit of a few early ones to roast the following spring. Garlic and onions, too small to be noticed at harvest time, can thrive the following year. This year for the first time I had some carrots that survived the mild winter and resprouted their greenery in the spring. Mmmm were they good!

   Most of my volunteers, though, come from my compost. Unfortunately, I can’t bear to pull a plant that went through so much to be there. Sometimes I have had to learn my lesson the hard way. I spent one summer silently leaving boxes of zucchini on doorsteps. (Now I toss my zucchini scraps into the woods.) Different kinds of melons and sweet and hot peppers have all grown themselves in my garden beds, often yielding a better crop than those I so carefully tended. I have also had very good success growing potatoes from rough compost. This year they were the only potatoes that resisted the early blight that ran rampant through the bed (go figure). Plants that reseed themselves can also be something you never had before. Hybrids will revert back to their original form and not be the same as the parent plant. I have tasted many tomatoes from volunteer plants that were not like any I had previously grown or purchased.

   I love gardening and have learned a lot about life from it. As much as I think I’m in charge, I’m not. Nature makes all the real decisions; I just get to play along. And “as you sow, so shall you reap”, I don’t think so. Sometimes it is true. Often though it seems that just as all my hard work at sowing does not nearly reap what I expected, so too do I find that many times I reap rewards beyond what I have sowed. Volunteer plants are much like those wonderful people in the world that show up unexpectedly and make your day, or your life, better.

   As far as my garden goes, I swear next year I am going to take some compost and throw it in a bed and cover it with a little top soil; water it, and just wait to see what happens. Could be the best veggies I ever grew! If it is, though, I’m not telling.