Growing Tomatoes -- has anyone had this happen?

[kadesma]

lol, i like the term volunteers.

i took over our garden after my fil passed away, and have desperately tried to change it from a dupont special to an organic garden.

one thing i have done, tho, is keep a small area in one corner undisturbed every year, and without fail, an few cherry tomato plants come up as "volunteers", from his plantings.
my fil loved cherry tomatoes, and each year a few of his plants still come up from seeds from the year before. it's been alomst ten years now.
still, there's a weird albeit deep connection, between him and me in his garden. so long as they grow, so he lives between the plants, in the sun and soil.

as much as i want to sell this house, i'll be sad to let things go like that.

gardeners really do put down roots, don't they?

they sure do Bucky, I use the area behind my home and in front of my parents mobile home for part of my garden, and never fail up comes a tomato plant from some my dad started when the first moved here in 2000..He and mom are both gone now, but that and the hummingbirds that flock to my yard tell me, welll you know you feel as I do, they are still here.

kadesma

 

[buckytom]

hugs kads.

i can still picture him looking over the abundant garden with satisfaction, sun setting, leaning on his shovel. rockwellian in his pose.

 

[sparrowgrass]

When I lived in Kentucky, the Forest Service was involved in reclaiming some old coal mine land. One of the things they did was spread sewage sludge on the bare ground. The next year, the whole area was covered in tomato plants.

 

[Constance]

as much as i want to sell this house, i'll be sad to let things go like that.

I know exactly how you feel, Tom. My daddy helped build our house. He turned every single one of the spindles on the balcony railing by hand, did all the woodwork...even built a china cabinet into the wall.
In my perennial bed are hybrid iris, daylilies and daffodils that came from my mother and grandmother. Every time the peach colored iris blooms, I remember that it's name is "Happy Birthday", and that my mother bought it for her mom for her birthday in May.
I feel them here with me all the time.

 

[kleenex]

Now if only your tomato seeds and pepper seeds could join forces to create a whole new food to eat.

 

[DinaFine]

THis year, i wanted a lot of cucumbers for making pickles. I started some from seed, and then I noticed that plants were coming up in the boxes that looked like cucumbers, so I thought that they were volunteers from last year. I was so happy that I would have plenty of cucumbers until I realized that they were not cucumbers but pumpkins, and not even big pumkins but those small decorative ones. I have no idea how that got into the garden. I was really bummed. Next year I'm just going to pull our any volunteers I get.