Who doesn’t like a good volunteer when you need one?
Between working over the road right now, a new little pepper showing up, and investing a good amount of time and effort into steemit, my garden is somewhat lacking this year. I’ve got some cucumbers, Chinese red noodle beans, kiwanos, kale, popcorn and other plants growing, but I still have a lot more to put in. Here is one example of a pile of seedlings that I still have to get in the earth.
The plan is to get the rest of the seedlings and seeds into the garden today and tomorrow, but we will see what actually happens. My only consolation is that up in Wisconsin I often would not plant my garden until June 1st or so, because of the risk of frost sometimes still late into May.
TOMATILLOS!
As I was preparing to plan out the rest of the garden, I noticed that several volunteers were growing up on their own. The tomatillos were in a solid cluster. Often these reseed themselves very well every year that I have ever grown them. These should be easy enough to lift and replant in whichever places I choose for them, so I am very excited about that, as they are one of the key ingredients in my Green Ghost Salsa, which is a spicy Salsa Verde recipe that I invented many years ago.
MUSTARD GREENS!
The mustard greens also did a great job of reseeding themselves. I have also had this happen in previous years as well. This is one of the reasons why I often let things go to seeds and allow some of the fruits or vegetables to drop to the earth if they get to ripe or bug eaten. Just as they are designed to do, the current generation provides the seeds for the next generation, and even without human intervention, the species lives on to thrive for another year.
NOODLE BEANS!
I was also very pleased to see that some Chinese noodle beans were also sprouting up on their own. These beans are a new family favorite for us, and they produce like crazy. We ate as many as we could fresh last year, and had massive harvests just about every day. In fact, we still have many jars of pickled noodle beans left and some frozen ones for stir-frys too! We already have some growing up that we did plant from seed this year, but a few more volunteers are always welcome.
POTATOES!
I once had an excited friend tell me how much he enjoyed growing his own potatoes because it was like digging for gems in the earth come harvest time. The nice part is, if you don't dig up all your "gems" and happen to miss a few, you may get some volunteers the next year. At the moment it appears that we have at least two volunteer potato plants, both of which are most likely Baby Reds. These will be delicious before too long!
Growing your own food can be such a wonderful hobby and excellent investment of time anyway, but when the plants come back on their own, it's just more free food out of nowhere! I'll still have to do my part getting the rest planted and caring for my garden this year, but I am so blessed that I now have potatoes, mustard greens, noddle beans, tomatillos and others coming up on their own to help provide food for my family.
Has anyone else gotten any volunteer garden plants this year yet?
As always, I'm @papa-pepper and here's the proof:
proof-of-volunteer
Until next time…
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Awesome quality article(wouldn't expect otherwise) I'm going to have to check out the Chinese Noodle beans. Never heard of them, but they sound prolific and popular. I can appreciate the Wisconsin planting temperature remark, I live in north central Iowa and we have been having some cold nights.
The volunteers look to be excellent candidate for a ninja/stealth garden.
I can mail you some Red Chinese Noodle Bean seeds if you want. Here is my post about them.
https://steemit.com/gardening/@papa-pepper/free-first-ever-steemit-seed-giveaway-garden-plant-spotlight-1-chinese-red-noodle-bean
If you are interested in seeds, hit me up on https://steemit.chat
RED & GREEN NOODLE BEANS
@papa-pepper will do thanks. I just love the sound of them, Noodle Beans, that's got to be why they are so popular with your family.
BTW, here's the post you inspired me with, thanks again.
https://steemit.com/life/@sighmanjestah/make-more-than-a-fortune-on-steemit-or-no-one-owes-you-anything
Home grown veg is so much nicer :)
That they are! Glad you agree!
I couldn't agree anymore! This year, I barely buy veggies - they're mostly just waiting to be picked and harvested in my garden. Cheers to gardening @papa-pepper!
Excellent, as always @englishtchrivy!
Congratulations @papa-pepper!
Your post was mentioned in my hit parade in the following category:
Enjoy gardening very much, but haven't had the time lately. My last gardening project was a disaster. I grew some watermelons. The plants were doing well and little watermelons were starting to sprout on the vines. Then I came home from work to find my dogs had eaten them right down to the roots. Guess I'll have to put up a fence the next time.
Good quality article. Thanks papa. I will have a farm soon and going to plant a lot.
Growing food can be hard work, at times, but when you get good results, you know its been worthwhile.
Absolutely! Thanks @rhino!
Thank you and nice post Papa!!
Hope all is going well with mamma and the little peppers!
Good post, follow
Followed back.
Nice, have to show us when they are fully grown!
Gardening seems to relax the mind as well! Great post papa!
Good Lucky! Nice potatoes will born :-)
Homegrown is awesome... and it's always fun to get some "mystery gifts," courtesy of the birds and other critters. We somehow ended up with some really excellent oregano... even though we have never grown any.
Very interesting!
We have lots of volunteer weeds. does that count? :-)
We used to have a rhubarb plant when I was a kid that you just couldn't kill, even with the lawn mower. (and I tried!)
It spread itself around the borders of the vegie garden after a while.
So what to do? Well, as kids we started eating it while the stalks were young and juicy.
It still didn't die, but we had some good vegies in us. :-)
I've just got a few herbs in my apartment and a few house plants. I started growing some beet microgreens that are just like what you are talking about. every 3 to 4 weeks we get new sprouts for a nice little salad. keep it up and why don't you post your salsa verde recipe?
ALREADY DID!
https://steemit.com/food/@papa-pepper/finally-papa-s-secret-recipe-green-ghost-salsa-released-for-the-first-time-ever-on-steemit
Freebie vegies is the way to go, and the little peppers can help transplant /water the transplants and learn about nature.
They sure can! Thanks man.
This is a great post! I love when things appear in the garden from the past season. I have some green onions doing well from last year and also have had tomatillos pop up in the past!! Nice!!
Tomatillos are definitely good for that.
nice...
Thanks....
You got to get that garden going. I have 25 tomatoes 6 peppers and a few other things. I have 65 blackberries in bloom now. Gave you an up vote and will follow @cullyguy
Very cool @cullyguy!
Volunteering in a garden setting is more valuable for the education you gain from seasoned hard working hands.
That it is.
Awesome job. I can't allow plants to reseed here though. since we have no winter, the result would be a chaotic mix of seedlings plants and bearing crops xD good to see that the art of the kitchen garden is not lost.
We had volunteer kale and lettuce! Which that seems a bit unlikely... but... I think maybe the kids could have had some mixed-up seeds that fell into the rows in the right place. Who knows?!?
Nice work with the photos and descriptions! I just started Steemit yesterday. Posts like yours are nice examples of what to aspire too :)
I'm in New Brunswick, Canada. We don't plant here until first week of June. I have. 4 x 8 bed of volunteer mesclun mix, kale and different lettuces coming up. Looks like you have flea beetles there too!
I love it when veggies reseed themselves (mostly). I have a ton of cilantro that is popping up from last year's planting. Though it has taken over a lot of my lettuce plantings, I'm not that upset about it :)
Volunteer Cilantro sounds great! I've had some of that before too.