Volunteers

No, this posting isn't about Tennessee who got the nickname the Volunteers during the war of 1812 when the Tennessee Governor asked for volunteers to fight.  The people responded and played a prominent role in the Battle of New Orleans.  We're big football fans, but not necessarily of the University of Tennessee.  We cheer for LSU and Texas A&M.  In fact, Laura Lee attends LSU and was on national TV last Saturday night when the CBS camera panned through the student section and settled on the prettiest girl in all 93,000 in attendance!  A friend with DVR paused it and took a picture and sent it to us.


Geaux Tigers, Geaux Laura Lee!

The Tigers came up short in that game unfortunately, but Tricia's Aggies knocked Alabama off today!  Way to go, Aggies! 

But back to the subject of today's post - Volunteers.  In the garden, we purposefully plant our crops from seed and enjoy the produce.  Seeds come up spontaneously that we don't plant as well.  In agriculture, the term 'volunteer' refers to exactly that - plants that came up on their own without being planted.  It is a nice surprise, a bonus.  I've taken a few pictures to show you the volunteers we currently have growing in the garden.  Here below is picture of a sweet potato "slip."  Sweet potatoes are not grown from seed, but from slips, or shoots from a sweet potato tuber.  We have these coming up all over the garden.  In fact we never have to plant them.  They come up year after year, probably from a sweet potato we composted years ago.  As a result, we have bountiful crops of sweet potatoes that we never have to plant.  Pretty cool, huh?



Heart shaped leaves of a sweet potato slip

Cilantro is the leaf part of a coriander plant that grows from a coriander seed.  These pop up volunteer all over the garden.  Here is one below coming up right next to a garlic shoot.  We enjoy making pico de gallo, salsa, and cooking these down with beans and in scrambled eggs.  It has a distinctive aroma.  Some people love it.  Some people say it tastes like soap.  We love it.



Cilantro

Basil is another item we never have to plant.  It germinates all throughout the garden from the seeds propagated from mature basil plants in the garden. 



Basil seedlings

Below is a Dixie Speckled butterbean that has come up right next to the Shanghai Greens (Chinese cabbage).  This undoubtedly sprouted from some of our butterbeans that matured and 'shattered', dropping the seed to the ground in the process.


Dixie Speckled Butterbean

Here is a nice tomato plant that has sprouted right next to the cabbage.  I think I'm going to repot this one and bring it in so it doesn't freeze.  I don't know what type it is as I plant numerous heirloom varieties.  I guess we'll just be surprised if it bears fruit.  I had a friend who tried to produce tomatoes in the winter in a greenhouse.  He told me that they made beautiful tomatoes, but they were tasteless.  I'm going to give it a shot, though, and hope ours taste good.


Volunteer Tomato Seedling

Here is some type of pepper plant that has come up on its own.  Like the tomato, I'll pot this one and bring it inside.  I've had success with saving peppers over the winter and enjoying their production for multiple years.  If I had to guess, I'd say this was a criolla sella pepper.  I'll just have to wait and see.

Mystery Pepper


Finally, right next to the Mangel Mammoth beets, I have a very pretty Sunflower plant that has decided it wants to grow right in the row.  I plant Arikara sunflowers in the spring.  They'll grow 12 feet tall.  This may be an Arikara, but it might be one that a bird dropped.  Or it may be a black oil sunflower.  We used to supplement our cow's feed with black oil sunflower seeds as they were said to give the cows more energy and boost their milk production.



Sunflower volunteer

It's always kind of fun to see which kind of plants that will simply come up in the garden without us having to plant them.  Except for the weeds, of course.  We have many, many volunteer weeds unfortunately.  I'll try to get my boys to 'volunteer' for weeding them tomorrow:)