Have you ever let a volunteer vegetable plant grow in your garden?

Yes. I like volunteers. Most are pleasant surprises. There is a lot of discussion about volunteers throughout the Groups, forums, and blogs on this site. I posted one in Garden Pictures about a cantaloupe. Browse around the site. There is a search box in the upper right corner. Stay natural, David

We had many volunteer heirloom tomato plants--in our compost! I left them to see how they would perform, and they're still producing (although we expect a freeze tonight.)

This year I'm enyoying a big big number of volunteer tomatoes. They seem to be even stronger than the ones I get in the nursery. I totally agree with let them be. And like the last years, the compost is full of different kinds of cabages, pumkings and squashes. I will tell about results when summer season ends. Volunteers are for me a great, surprise gift!!

I get a quite lot of sunflowers and coloured tobacco plants just appearing amongst the vegetables. Probably from seed in the compost. I let most things grow insitu, though some i do transplant elsewhere, if they are really in the wrong place. Everything that appears goes towards the general mixture. And variety is good as it provides a variety of habitat for different insects to live in. Glenn

To Roger & all, here is the "volunteer production" link I mentioned earlier in this comment. The Drupal comment box needs to be tuned to be more friendly to "cut & paste" info inserts. At present, anything that is "cut & paste" inserts ONLY at the top of the comment box. This makes it necessary to compose comments that include multiple info inserts in Word & cut & paste whole thing. While that process is possible it definitely impacts spontaneity when time is a factor! http://kitchengardeners.org/group/garden-pictures Amy, I won't take the liberty of reposting your fascinating squash photo here ... Thanks for linking your excellent blog. I do know from our regional seed expert & Extension Agent, Jo Ann Robbins, that squash easily cross-pollinates & it looks like one parent was golden Zuchinni & the other was maybe-golden Acorn squash & the Zuchinni gene for elongation kicked it! So much for forensic genetics! I will send her this link. Your photo reminds me of a photo of the most adorable offspring of a Zebra & a Donkey that is probably too off-topic to post on KGI. The young foal? has a beige body, striped legs & attentive parents on hand. I hope that those who have commented on their volunteers will include the how & where info. It is easy to add to a comment with the Edit tool. For those whose volunteers were in the compost, it would be interesting to know how you compost. My composting system was & is turned only by worms & is on a two-year cycle. Since the compost is continuously moist for two years, which seems to be longer than any perennial stratification period, I rarely get weeds - or volunteers - in the compost. I do layer the compost & it does go through the heating process, but from there the worms take over. I will later insert a link to my KGI comment on "volunteer production" which I forgot to pick up before I started here. From Amy's great blog post: "This plant grew in a location that was previously overgrown forest and blackberries and hasn’t been touched in at least twenty years. So someone, at some time, must have grown some sort of squash on our property!"

I get a quite lot of sunflowers and coloured tobacco plants just appearing amongst the vegetables. Probably from seed in the compost. I let most things grow insitu, though some i do transplant elsewhere, if they are really in the wrong place. Everything that appears goes towards the general mixture. And variety is good as it provides a variety of habitat for different insects to live in. Glenn

Hi Amy, I have found that greens produce the best volunteers... from kale to lettuce, mustards, Asian greens, and this year lots of Swiss chard 'Bright Lights." What I've noticed is that these plants tend to evolve quickly, within one or two generations, to adapt to the local climate. The result is better plants for your particular site. Often I will let the greens produce a seed stalk, then lay it down in a different part of the garden for the next batch. It may take a little thinning, but this year with chard I didn't thin at all. It kind of "thinned" itself, and the patch was free of weeds.

The squash picture in your personal blog is awsome. Yes I also like volunteers and sometimes leave them to see if they produce. earlier this year I had one cantaloupe like Dave, some butternut squash other than those I planted and a sungold cherry tomato. Today I dug up a volunteer potato. Apparently I missed one when I harvested in July and it started growing in August. I just planted my greens around it. It gave me eight beautiful potatoes. There's a lesson here for me...I can grow a second crop of potatoes, something that had not occured to me to try.