I love volunteer plants. You know, the ones where you plant it once, and it self-seeds every year after that. I can’t tell you how nice it is not to have to start chamomile from seed each year. I already know that it will show up in my garden of its own volition.
Those kinds of volunteer plants are wonderful. But others…
If I could go back in time, I would run up to past me, snatch that seed packet right out of my hand, run straight back to my time machine and yell, “Trust me! You’ll thank me later!” over my shoulder.
These are all wonderful plants in theory, but once you put them in the ground, you’ll be pulling up their offspring for ages. And it’s incredible how one season’s favorite vegetable can turn into the most prolific weed every year after that.
From personal experience, here are a few plants I wish I had never planted in my garden.
1. Principe Borghese Tomatoes
I grew Principe Borghese tomatoes in containers for several years, and I loved them. They were excellent for making sun-dried tomatoes, and even on my tiny apartment balcony, I could count on getting hundreds of tomatoes from one or two plants.
So, when my sweety and I started the big garden out at his place, I knew I was going to grow them there, too. What I didn’t know was that I would be pulling up the volunteers every year after that.
Now, I already know what you’re going to say.
“Tracey, you’ve got free tomato seedlings. Why don’t you just grow them?”
Aha, my friend, here’s the hitch in this brilliant plan – the Principe volunteers show up too late in the season to reach maturity. By the time the Principe volunteers start showing up in my garden, the tomato plants that I start indoors are about two months ahead of them.
It’s strange. I’ve never had tomato volunteers like this before. Sure, I’ll get one or two plants, but these little buggers are all over the garden every single year now.
2. Ground Cherries
I love ground cherries. An old flame’s sister introduced me to them years ago. They’re a delicious and novel tomato-like plant to grow in your garden. They taste like dessert, yet they’re good for you.
They make excellent jam; they’re great in a gin and tonic (not good for you); there are a lot of great things you can make with ground cherries.
Yes, you can easily get hundreds of ground cherries from a single plant.
However, what no one ever tells you is that every single one of those fruits contains about a hundred seeds. Inevitably, some of those fruits are going to rot in place and hang out in your soil.
From that point on, ground cherries will be the first thing that pops up in your garden every year and you will yank up far more volunteers than you will ever need. Right now, ground cherry is the most prolific “weed” in my garden.
With most volunteer plants, like my chamomile, I have to dig it up and plant it where I would prefer it to grow. With ground cherry, I wait. Eventually, one will pop up where I want my ground cherry to be that year, and I’ll let it grow and yank up all the other ones. All season long.
Despite all this, I still love ground cherries and look forward to them each year.
3. Borage
Grow borage, they said. It’s great for the pollinators, they said. It makes great tea, they said. You can use it as a chop-and-drop fertilizer, they said.
What they didn’t say is that all those beautiful sky-blue flowers would quickly go to seed and that I would be pulling this stuff up out of my garden for the rest of my life. I even have volunteers popping up from this year’s volunteers.
I guess the silver lining is that I never have low pollination rates among my vegetables.
4. Mint
Ugh, I know. I should have known better. Instead, I planted mint in the ground in my main vegetable garden. I have an area dedicated to herbs. Now, that area is dedicated to mint and a few herbs that are struggling to hold their heads above the mint.
Don’t get me wrong. I love mint. I use it all the time, and I dry it for tea. But I wish I had been smart enough to grow it in a container.
In my garden, you don’t pick mint to use for iced tea or mojitos; you yank it up by the roots and you try to get as much of the roots as possible. Someday, I’ll have my herb garden back. Someday.
5. Cucamelons
Okay, this is one veggie I wish I had never planted for a different reason. Am I yanking up volunteers every year? No. What drove me nuts about cucamelons is how much space the plant takes up for how few cucamelons you get.
I tried growing cucamelons for two years in a row.
Each year, I had masses of vining plants that produced enough cucamelons to fill a pint jar. It simply wasn’t worth the effort and space to grow them.
Volunteers I Love
Sometimes, plants that come back year after year can be amazing. It’s pretty great when a plant you love will reliably show up in your garden each year without any extra work on your part.
With that in mind, here are a few of my favorite volunteers that show up in my garden.
1. Arugula
Specifically, wasabi arugula.
Arugula is incredible stuff. Also known as rocket, arugula adds depth to boring lettuce-only salads with its slightly bitter bite. And once you plant it, it will happily pop up every year after that. The plants are small enough that they are not going to crowd anything out, so no matter where they volunteer, they are a polite addition to your garden.
I found this wasabi arugula a year or two ago, and it’s fantastic. It’s great in soups and salads and makes an amazing pizza topping. It’s got that cool, spicy bite that wasabi has, but it’s much easier to grow.
2. Chamomile
I love chamomile tea. I especially love chamomile tea made from chamomile, which I grew myself. These days, I don’t have to grow it from seed as it reliably volunteers in the garden each year.
It smells amazing anytime you brush up against it, and the pollinators love it. Its fragrant leaves can also help to “hide” your brassicas from hungry cabbage worms.
This is one volunteer that is always welcome in my garden.
3. Marigolds
Marigolds are so good for your tomatoes (and other plants, too). I used to buy marigold seedlings or grow them from seed. But these days, I just wait a bit in the spring.
By the time I put my tomato plants in the ground, the marigold volunteers are big enough to dig up and plant where I want them. This makes my spring seed-starting easier as it frees up space in my little indoor greenhouse.
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