Monday 20 January 2014

Compost Pot Luck

We all know how wonderful compost is right? A great way to add nutrient to the soil via your vegetable off cuts and the like. But compost can be more than this  - it can make your vegetable patch for you!

In spring I dug in the compost that was in my tumbling compost bin in preparation for planting the usual summer crops. To my great surprise a load of seedlings from the compost came up.


I have no idea what they are -  cucurbits of some sort are particularly evident but what sort of cucurbit are they? I have about 5 of these large leaved things starting to take over... I wonder if they are a watermelon or a pumpkin? In any case they are doing very well.


Then I have about 5 of these little fellas doing very well - I suspect a cucumber or a rockmelon?

Then there are the tomatoes that have popped up.


Very delicate little plants that seem to be forming  cherry tomatoes in a Mini Roma type form. There are about 5 of these too.

It is fantastic to have these surprise plants for free coming up thru the garden. I cant wait to see what they will yield. Next spring I will devote a whole bed to these random compost pot luck vegetables, just to see what happens. Yay, free plants!

Have you had a vegetable surprise lately? From your compost heap or a self seeded surprise?

4 comments:

  1. Compost pot luck veg just makes me smile! I woudn't say your first pic is watermelons though, all the watermelons I've ever grown have different shaped leaves. Maybe you have an entirely unprecedented plant though... I look forward to seeing what it produces.

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  2. Most of my volunteers this year are tomatoes - almost all small thick stemmed plants producing trusses of slicing size tomatoes. I'm hoping they taste good as the plants would be great for pots - perfect size. I did have a few random cucurbits but I pulled them out as they mostly came up in inconvenient places. I have left one in though - not sure what it is yet and the chooks keep digging near its roots so I'm not sure it will get big enough to fruit so I may never know....

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  3. I had a few volunteer tomatoes which I moved to the tomato bed but most of what came up from the compost was Kent pumpkins, over 2 dozen. I moved them to another spot but they died and I had to sow more. Next year I will just leave any that come up, hopefully they will do better then the ones I sowed.

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  4. I got a fruit tree via the worm farm! I think its either peach or nectarine. Its going to be a donation our local community garden to replace one of the trees that hasn't made it past the total neglect they have been submitted to....
    I have tomatoes too.... for some reason yellow pear variety popping up everywhere and what I suspect is Jap pumpkin (just because that's my normal pumpkin of choice.

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