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?
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.
ReplyDeleteMost 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....
ReplyDeleteI 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.
ReplyDeleteI 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....
ReplyDeleteI 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.