Garden Volunteers Welcome!

At the end of each summer gardening season, I try to tabulate statistics.  While not as exciting for sports fans as football yardage or baseball batting averages, these numbers reveal the best and worst performing plants and often dictate plans for the following spring.  
 

Volunteer Squash and Volunteer Watermelon

As I recently thumbed through volumes of spiral-bound notebooks, dirt stained pages that represent years of farm work, I noticed a surprising trend.  Although some crops produced extremely well during certain years, those same heirloom varieties sometimes have a "off" year.  Drought, too much rain, less-than-ideal temperature swings and pest attacks all contribute to crop failure, but those dirty notebooks reveal that, year after year, volunteer plants consistently outperform the ones I place in the soil.  
 

My grandmother's marigolds frequently volunteer at the farm

"Volunteer" plants spring from seed that is left in fields, whether in late season fruits and vegetables or those undesirable harvests that are cast aside and left to rot where they fall.  Last spring, Richard ran the tiller through several dried summer squash and the plants that grew from scattered seeds, protected through the winter by a hard shell, thrived and produced fruit from May until October.  Since there were so many seedlings, I did not plant additional seed, but conversations with other area farmers revealed it was not a great squash season for some.  When I tabulate the pounds I picked from those volunteer squash, I expect the total harvest to be in the hundreds.  Not bad, considering those seeds planted themselves!

Late season squash & Whippoorwill peas, harvested from volunteers

 Volunteer plants will grow anywhere a seed finds the right environment and can sometimes show up in surprising places.  One of our best-producing salad tomatoes grew from a tiny space in the rock wall that surrounds an herb garden.  A couple of years ago, a bird "planted" an asparagus seed in a large pot at our home and that plant produced edible spears this year.  Currently, one of my favorite volunteers is a large borage plant, a beautiful herb that tastes like cucumber and boasts a beautiful, deep blue edible blossom.  Conveniently, that plant chose a container that was filled with composted soil, but no other plants.
 

Beautiful Borage has a cucumber flavor

It is satisfying for gardeners to grow neat, orderly rows of healthy fruits and vegetables, but if you are willing to take a chance on volunteers and do not mind less than perfect garden layout, allow volunteer plants to grow where they choose.  An abundant harvest of "free food" just might be your reward.