Volunteer Plants: A Garden Bonus

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PHOTO: SANDRA DARK

Last year I harvested over 100 pounds of watermelons, three large delicious cantaloupes, and several meals’ worth of summer squash … all from volunteer plants. Better still, with a little encouragement, my current vegetable garden should produce even greater yields of the “unplanted” tomatoes, garlic, large-seeded sunflowers, and more!

Naturally Better

Produce from volunteer plants is often bigger and tastier than are intentionally cultivated crops. After all, the plants have sprouted where they want to grow, as opposed to where you want them to. Like wildflowers, unbidden edibles usually appear wherever they’ll have the best chance to survive and reproduce . . . that is, where the soil has the necessary nutrients, the proper pH balance, and just the right amount of drainage to satisfy the needs of the plant in question.

Three of the sweetest and best-flavored cantaloupes I’ve ever eaten, for example, grew from some compost that had been spread on an area intended for a succession crop of pole beans. The melon vine climbed a nearby fence, where its weighty fruits — being airborne — had to be supported with small baskets to keep them from tearing loose from the plant. Otherwise, the wayward waif was left to shift for itself . . . yet all three melons were perfectly formed, heavily webbed, and free of blemishes.

The previous summer, a cherry tomato plant erupted spontaneously next to a walkway in our ornamental garden. It sprawled its way across the path’s wood chip mulch and interfered with foot traffic . . . while producing well over 20 pounds of firm, oval tomatoes.

  • Published on May 1, 1980
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