volunteer tomatoes

Last year what I thought were plum tomatoes turned out to be cherry tomatoes. They refuse to go way. Here are a few pictures of some that are popping up. GThis one is growing out of crack in asphalt.

This one popped up in earth box which i recently cut back broccoli.

This one is growing next to a chain link fence.

How fun! We had tons of volunteers this spring from all the half bird-eaten tomatoes we through into the compost pile last year.

I have several volunteers that are growing through the tiny holes in the weed cloth I use!

The funniest place I have seen volunteer tomatoes was right outside a chemical plant, growing in a superfund site (which also happened to be a bayou). Every variety from cherry to Bradywine. The only way I can guess they got there was from a sewage overflow that deposited the seeds during a flood, which happens pretty often here. I wish I still had the picture.

Hope you didn't eat those radioactive 'maters sapphire - lol. I have volunteers popping up all the time. Sometimes I let them grow just to see what they are. This year one was a Roma type - must have been from hybrid store 'maters cuz those were the nastiest tomatoes I think I've ever tasted - lol. Now I use that plant to relocate hornworms to - lol. Figured I'd let a few live to become beautiful moths.

This year I decided to keep a bunch of my volunteers all over the property (flower beds as well as vegi garden) after some critter decided to keep snipping off the stems of a number of my newly planted heirloom tomato seedlings. I figured they might be the only tomatoes I got this year! Funny how the volunteers are often the cherry and plum type. But it is fun to see what I'll get since they come from my compost pile. I tend to throw the seeds and remnants of tomatoes into my compost garbage when I make sauce. The volunteers always amuse me, especially after I have struggled to get some obscure heirloom to germinate and grow!

I have a volunteer tomato growing in my melon patch and a volunteer melon growing by my chard. I'm planning to leave them be because I usually grow OP varieties, so they should be decent for eating. Last year I had a ton of volunteer tomato plants; I don't know why I have so few this time. Last year I knew what they were from where they were growing, but this time I haven't a clue. They are fun!

I transplanted volunteers last year, and although they produced lots of tomatoes, they had no flavor. This year, I pulled up and composted every volunteer!

However, I let some melon volunteers alone, and they are producing some good looking Charentais-type by the looks of them.

A few years ago I had been fussing around with my tomato plants in the garden. For hours on end, I was weeding, watering, fertilizing,etc. One day a co-worker asked me if I'd walked by the sheet metal building recently. I went to see what he was talking about and there between the concrete and the brick building was the healthiest tomato plant I had seen all year. It was growing out of a crack that was no more than a half inch wide. Soon it was covered with blossoms and needless to say it had ripe tomatoes a couple weeks before mine did. Sometimes I really wonder if it's worth all the effort. LOL

It definitely is, psudan! Who wants to wait for the perfect seed that's able to grow in a crack in the concrete, anyway. And think of the fun (fun?) you've been having with your plants!

I think the flavor of the volunteers versus my cultivated ones will depend on whether they were from my original heirlooms or hybrids I bought in the store. No way of telling till they mature and the less tastier volunteers can always become part of a sauce! Volunteers are doing great this summer but so are the cultivated ones. Even the replacements for the snipped off ones are starting to take off. The rain yesterday sure made a difference! So let's keep telling ourselves that all this "weeding, watering, fertilizing,etc" is definitely worth it!!!
No matter what, I can definitely say my cultivated ones still look stronger because I feed them more!

Psudan, did you ever taste the tomatoes from the volunteer that grew in the crack? How was it?

Gardadore, No, I didn't taste the tomatoes. There's so much grinding dust and welding smoke coming from that building that I didn't care to try. Besides some of my "non-gardening"co-workers kept the plant pretty well picked. Looked like a bunch of vultures. LOL

That would be precisely why I wasn't tempted to try the superfund tomatoes. :D I know far too much. They were pretty though and spanned the gamut from Bradywine to cherry. We did take a picture to show around the office (since I work for an environmental company).

My volunteers are doing very well, no diseases, looking very healthy considering they are never watered or fertilized. All have numerous blossoms, some have green tomatoes, even the ones right under the black walnut tree where they will surely die once their roots get deep enough.