I have notice bachelor buttons coming up. And black eyed susans. No surprises there! :)

i have chives that come up every year, and these tomatoes that rott, they come up every year w/o fail!! its darn well amazing, ya know, tomato's are perennial anyhow, LOL in a little while i'll see what else i have that's sprouted, i have something that looks like wild parsley if there is such a thing. LOL

This is something I read somewhere - new veggies from discarded roots. When cleaning onions and leeks leave a small part of the white area connected to the roots, 1/2" for green onions and bigger onions, and 1" for leeks. Either place in a small amount of water or place them in a plastic bag in the fridge (check daily for roots). Same for cabbage, place the bottom of the cabbage in a tray with a little water. Supposedly new roots will grow for these veggies and then can be planted.
I can't vouch for this because I haven't tried it, but would like to. Worth a try!

I don't deliberately plant a volunteer garden, but plenty of stuff overwinters here (with some protection) so I have beets, lettuce, spring onions, etc, that have lasted through the winter.

Florrie

Melons! The birds raid our compost heap and plant cantaloupe and honeydew melons for us. Fortunately, most come up in the vegetable garden, and those that don't get transplanted as soon as we find them.
In the flower garden we have dozens of West Texas watermelon (that's the color) mallow coming up from the mother plant's seed.
Blue jays and squirrels have given us several pecan trees--they plant them in our containers, and when the trees are big enough, we put them along the edge of the orchard. Five free pecan trees so far, and counting!

well my tomatoes seed themselves every year along with so many flowers. I rarely clean up the garden in the fall as I like to watch the birds helping themselves to the seeds all winter, and of course I like that some of them drop and grow in the spring. I am sure that I have given away hundreds of Rose of Sharon!
The squirrels have also provided me with many 'surprise' flowers from the bulbs that they dig up in the neighbours' yards and plant in mine!
spring is always such fun as the new plants, whether from the squirrels, birds or the wind, start to show themselves! I love volunteers and they are always welcome. Sometimes not in my garden, but at least I can pot up the ones that I don't want and give them to someone that does. :)
gg

I have a friend in Memphis, Tn. that puts out all of her kitchen waste in a pile out in the back corner of her yard.(this is also in the corner of her yearly garden - Similar to a compost heap). All thru the summer and winter she empties the scraps. Some are eaten by birds, others by rabbits or squirrels. In the late spring she goes and turns out the pile and sees what comes up. Always she has a beautiful volunteer garden with wonderful things to grow and to eat. Then she only has to purchase what didn't come back on it's own. I think this is truly a frugal thing.

I always have tomatoes growing out by the garden where I throw the rotted ones. I also for years have had Huckleberry Wonderberry seed itself unfortunately the flea beetles eat most of them.

I have a volunteer garden in my entire yard! All the weeds volunteer to grow where I don't want them, but I didn't ask them!

All kidding aside, I have quite a few sprouts coming up where I have my raised veggie beds and where I put out all my kitchen scraps. Now I have a compost bin set up, so no more of that. So I will wait and see what comes up. Free plants are always nice.

Now I never thought of doing this, but creating a holding bed. I am thinking of splitting that bed and mixing both within it. Should be fun!

Great idea!

I had some neglected pots on my front porch that had been infiltrated by some weed. A friend w/ a PhD in nutrition who's also an herbalist saw them and got really excited - turned out to be chickweed, (which is apparently good for a variety of digestive issues, who knew?)

Dandelion leaves are also edible. The neighbor's front yard is overwhelmed with claytonia (miner's lettuce) every Spring.

Thanks every one for putting in your comments on the 'volunteer garden'. My veggie garden is coming up fine and I have been moving more stuff around to keep it from being too crowded. Now I have tomatoe plants coming up in my newly potted hydranga cuttings. The seeds must have come from my compost bin. Tomatoes in all four of my pots. What next?

The local garden club started getting so many volunteers about 10 years ago that we cut back on buying plants.

White alyssum self seeds like crazy and is taking over the downtown (with a little help from us). Bachelor Buttons, pink cosmos (we get better plants than you can buy anymore), hundreds of multiheaded sunflowers. We have gotten cleome in the past. And although we haven't planted it for almost a decade, we still get Bells of Ireland seedlings that we don't want every year. And the chionodoxa bulbs are spreading too. I'm going to go out and clean up a bit after lunch (work near the beds) and won't be surprised to find more.

I'm late with this but in zone 3 we're late with everything to do with gardening! :)

I no longer do a veggie garden but have a large mostly perennial garden and deliberately let a lot of them self-seed. Might not continue to do that as am tired of "weeding" and trying to find spaces/homes for more plants.

My worst (or best) self seeders are feverfew, shasta daisies, Jacob's ladder, mallow, chives, 3 kinds of poppies, and I'm always happy to see a few Bachelor's Buttons turn up continuing from a wild-flower mix many years ago. We always have lots of sunflower volunteers cause the birds are so helpful and spread them from the feeder. We just transplant them to a better location.

Most years we have volunteer onions, potatoes, or even occasionally a tomato plant from the compost.

Many years ago while living in a warmer climate I planted dozens of tomato plants and despite inviting everyone in to help themselves many tomatoes self-seeded. The next year I had a huge crop of volunteers as well as a huge influx of tomato beetles. Ugh! I picked those bugs for days. Those were volunteers I could have lived without.

Last year almost all my tomatoes were volunteers that popped up here and there and, same as others in this list, I transplanted to the veg area. I get dill, fennel, cilantro, red and green perilla, cone flower, monarda, liatris, digitalis, blackberry lily, love-lies-bleeding, black eyed susan, oriental lily, butterfly bush, caryopteris, coreopsis, columbines... I am sure I am forgetting something. Last year I freecycled a bunch of things and had 5 people come to my garden and help me thin out the stuff. Then I got rid of the front lawn and are about done transplanting many of the volunteer perennials to the new flower bed. I am also exchanging plants with friends.

I want to add that after reading this thread, I went to check my compost pile and I have melons growing! I am so moving them to the veg garden. Oh, and my volunteer tomatoes are bigger than my friend's early seedlings!

And we can all smile really big when we go to the market and look at the astounding price of fresh veggies and know that we have our own at home for free ! ! !

Isn't a volunteer garden wonderful ?

i have two volunteer tomatoe plants coming up.can i transplant them w out killing them?

sure!

Just do it as soon as possible (while they're still young/small), water them before you move them, take as much soil with them as possible-
the ideal would be for the plants to not "realize" they've been moved-
plant them in a hole that you've watered, mulch, & keep them watered.

Expect a little wilting from the stress, but if the sun is too strong or the temp too high, make a cardboard sunshield to protect them for a few days.