It's like the Peace Corps out there

[curly_kate]

So many volunteers coming up! Squash, tomatoes, potatoes...I even found volunteer PEPPERS! And this is after we had a winter with a week or so of sub-zero temps! I'm usually pretty lenient with them because I've got a lot of respect for plants that are that tough. I'm thinking I might save the seeds from these guys this year because surviving last winter is a pretty impressive feat. What do you guys do with your volunteers? Let 'em go or yank 'em out?

 

[baymule]

I had volunteer Celebrity tomatoes come up one year. They were hybrid and reverted to the parent genes and whatever parent that was, they didn't produce diddly-squat. Wasted space. On the flip side, the sweet potato slips I ordered liquefied in the plastic bag in the shipping box and they all died. But I got volunteers from bits of roots left in the bed, so I'll have some sweets after all!

Let 'em grow!

 

[thistlebloom]

Wish I had volunteers. Things don't have much opportunity to get overripe and go to seed around here. The early freeze will often take them out just as they're hitting their stride.

Oh wait! I just remembered, I get potato volunteers most years and I always let them grow.

 

[journey11]

I've let volunteer tomatoes go in the compost pile a couple of times and they ended up diseased, so those I don't keep anymore, but for most everything else I'm game.

I had a very large and tasty compost pile cantaloupe a couple years back and saved seed from it and am growing that seed out this year to see what will happen.

I seriously appreciate volunteer herbs, because that's one of the last things I remember to get planted. Flowers are always appreciated too. I forgot to plant dill this year and none came back, so that's what I get for being too complacent.

I grew out a bunch of turnips for seed last spring, saved what I wanted and tossed the stalks aside on a corner of the garden to compost later. This year I have turnips coming up in some of the other stuff I planted and I've let them stay to serve as a really effective weed suppressor.

 

[Chickie'sMomaInNH]

it depends on where the volunteers come up. i had some onions i missed that were still small and i left them in that bed along with the leeks i knew should come back. i guess i misses some potatoes in one bed i had even tilled last year but thought the tiny spuds wouldn't have made it through winter. guess i was wrong about them. i missed pulling some garlic that died back last year and i didn't till that bed last fall to see what i had missed. same bed i get volunteer tomatoes each year i got some this year. i had to move them since i put potatoes in there this year. this year i don't have any volunteer squash from that bed.

 

[seedcorn]

Depends. Tomatoes, pull-except for one that might be San Marzano. If not, will pull. Peppers, if room, leave or transplant.

Garlic, transplant. Herbs, leave.

 

[Ridgerunner]

It depends what it is. Very early this spring I transplanted some volunteer garlic. It's already finished. So far the volunteers I've transplanted are one potato, seven marigolds, three basil, two dill, and one tomato. Where it was that tomato should be a black cherry, an open pollinated variety. We'll see. I agree most volunteer tomatoes are disappointing but I had room to try it. I left one volunteer zinnia where it came up. It was polite enough to come up in a good spot. I actually planted a few more zinnias around it.

I've taken out a lot of marigold, tomato, and bean volunteers. Most herbs I will try to transplant but I don't do it that often with other stuff.

 

[curly_kate]

@journey11 , you reminded me that I found dill, too, which makes NO sense because I didn't even plant that last year.

 

[Ridgerunner]

@journey11 , you reminded me that I found dill, too, which makes NO sense because I didn't even plant that last year.

Some people are just talented

 

[digitS']

Kate, it is always fun to see how things work out. My dill comes from years ago and was "bouquet dill," something I thought might be really special. It's been coming back for about 15 years. Here is wishing you the best of luck on everything.

As with others, I have had little success with volunteers - so far. As with @thistlebloom , tomato ripening limits what a plant can do starting weeks later than those in a greenhouse. I've had 2 encouragements to keep trying.

One was a Russian variety that was prone to disease but volunteered and ripened. Another was probably a Sweet 100 volunteer that was covered with ripe cherries that, unfortunately, had lost much of its parent's sweetness.

The tractor guy once spread seed from the neighbor's squash volunteers throughout my garden. Unfortunately, his yellow crooknecks had crossed with my pumpkins and produced something like a gourd! Those plants ended up even in my winter squash patch that year and I had trouble knowing what I had planted and what volunteered.

Steve