Volunteer Tomato Plants

Volunteer Tomato Plants

June 25, 2010

We've had a fair amount of warm days followed by rain in the afternoon and evenings mixed with rainy days.  The combination has seen weeds sprout up on the garden paths so they are getting to the point of needed to be cleared again.  A couple of days ago I noticed two volunteer tomato plants on one of the paths and there is another one in the first raised bed.  Volunteer tomato plants are fairly common, sprouting up from seeds that survived in the soil over the winter.  I've even had volunteer tomato plants come up around the compost bin and the year the squirrels kept snitching tomatoes I found tomato plants coming up along the fence. 

I tend to keep any volunteer tomato just to see what kind of tomatoes I get.  If the volunteers were from hybrids the results can be interesting.  If they are from heirloom tomato seeds then I end up with a few more heirloom plants (eg. Brandywine).  Depending on where the volunteer tomato plants are I will transplant them into 5 gal containers or to a more convenient location.  I don't plant them in with the main bed tomatoes so I can try identifying them if and when they produce fruit.

Happy Gardening!

Garden Gnome
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