A few weeks ago , I was water the garden and start to look over several uncultivated areas where I ’ll be planting my summertime crop . In these unused plots , a multitude of weeds and grass had already taken root . Among the weed , I found a small crop of volunteer tomato and murphy plants already growing .
The tomatoes had grown from last year ’s dropped fruit and the potatoes starts had shoot from some random tubers accidentally miss during the fall harvest . The question now becomes : What do I do with these precocious upstarts ?
Several options subsist when decide how to handle volunteer : you could let them grow where they are , attempt to transfer them or remove them completely . Here are some things to keep in mind if you ’re consider get them grow .
1. Luck of the Draw
For seed - based volunteers , like my 50 - plus Lycopersicon esculentum starts , you almost never know what character of tomato plant will really develop . Tennessean can be like to their parents or completely different . Some folks like to keep these Lycopersicon esculentum around to see what they get and bask the benefits of fresh , complimentary tomato industrial plant .
2. Plant Competition
Certain issues come with allowing voluntary plants to develop where they sprout , including shade out your intentionally planted crops , overcrowding and stealing water from nearby crops .
3. Kill Frosts
Many Volunteer sprout quite betimes in the season and are wipe out or injured by cool atmospheric condition conditions . About one-half of my volunteer Lycopersicon esculentum in my front - curtilage garden were lose in last workweek ’s frost . Even if you ’re interested in transplanting volunteers , you should know that the success rate is often pretty low due to the very fine size of the shew root systems , especially for squash , melon and cucumber plants .
4. Spread of Disease
By letting volunteers grow in your garden , you run a risk introducing and spreading disease to the full garden . Volunteer potato , for model , are a vulgar generator of late - blight spores , which can wipe out your tomato plant , peppers , aubergine and many other crops in the garden .
My Advice
The best policy regarding volunteer tomatoes and potato , like mine , is to polish off them quickly and entirely . Many garden experts recommend the remotion of all unpaid worker starts to prevent the introduction of common plant viruses and diseases . While volunteer - carry disease might not impact your garden every year — or even every couple years — the terror is enough for me to remove most of the military volunteer I find . The lonesome exception are volunteers that occur far away from the garden , like the plant that take root in the compost bundle located behind the house .
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