If there is anything that my giant seed stash attests too it is that I am something of a compulsive seed saver. I think it has morphed into about three large bins with voluminous seeds of corn, squash, and beans probably being the biggest space hogs.
One interesting feature of being a seed saver is that a portion of every crop, and often entire crops that get neglected become seed crops. Usually I harvest a portion of these and the seed goes into my seed stash. However, some seed usually falls to the ground or remains on the plant forming both aerial and soil seed banks. The consequence of this is that many garden vegetables flex the fact that they are in fact only partially domesticated and readily volunteer. I of course then recognize the resulting seedlings and weed around them.
As a botanist sometimes I've left for years at a time for work in places where I wasnt able to garden. Most recently I gardened heavily in 2011 and 2012 and then returned in 2016. I returned to some volunteers of Lancer parsnip, daikon radish, Siberia kale, and common purple top turnip.
As long as I garden each year and create annual disturbance and some weeding I have gotten reliable volunteering from the following in addition to the four I mentioned previously:
Amaranth, dill, lettuce, orach, sunflower, leafy mustards, miners lettuce, California chia, cilantro, corn salad, carrot, bee's friend, arugula, fennel from seed, tomatillos, and ground cherries.
Tomatoes volunteer regularly but the pattern seems to be unreliable hopefully I will be able to find a reliable strain of wild or domestic soon. Solanum peruvianum, Solanum pimpinillifolium, and domestic tomato all volunteered for me in 2018.
Then some plants like fennel also volunteer from vegetative propagules: mint, fennel, french sorrel, showy milkweed, potato, jerusalem artichoke all fall in this category. Some of these also go to seed reliably.
I like the idea of plants that retain some of the fitness of their wild progenitors. So as a breeding strategy relying on volunteerism doesn't bother me much for now.
I think in the long term and for some crops in some locales this could interfere greatly with selection. However for many plants I suspect that this methodology may be resulting in some level of local adaptation. My dill for instance originated from several varieties and so is a grex. As are my carrots. So they have variation that natural selection can act upon to achieve local adaptation.
With carrots it could lead to annual flowering, hybridizing with queen Annes lace (not currently a problem here). For other species non-selection could lead to populations that grow well, but don't taste as good.
Currently though it greatly interests me to see how far a self seeding garden can go.
What doesn't work for me? Squash, peas, beans, and corn so far. Though squash and peas have flirted with volunteering for me. If the fruits plants, or seeds can't survive the winter or is almost perfectly harvested it won't volunteer. Incidentally there seems to be a ideal type of domestic tomatoes for volunteering. Large seeds, small fruits, lots of unpicked fruits- yellow pear is a good example though too long season to be an ideal volunteer in my garden.
Then there are true feral vegetables which could be divided into waifs and established populations. I have seen a number of feral tomatoes many of which were probably waifs. I have also seen wild beets, rye, rape, radish, fennel, nasturtium, new Zealand spinach, and tomatillo. I consider such populations to be somewhat akin to wild crop relatives and to be potential sources of good germplasm. I collected my fennel and some of my rye from such populations. I also got rye from Joseph collected originally from feral populations.
A final category might include truly wild vegetables that have never been or have barely been domesticated. While not a vegatable, Malus pumila the common apple is such a plant. Fennel might rightly belong in this category as might queen Annes lace. Wild tomato species, wild crop relatives, and wild species like the California chia, miners lettuce, and showy milkweed in my garden are simply wild species. I may think of some of these as domestication projects, but domestication may require a great deal of time. If the wild crop relatives or wild species can also reproduce in the habitat they may establish populations. I looked up one of the only known wild populations of Solanum peruvianum in San Diego County California recently on calflora or the california consortium of herbaria websites and as I recall the herbarium record said that it was growing at Torrey Pines in the vicinity of an old experiment station where it was grown deliberately. The record was from awhile back. If the population didn't persist it may have simply been a waif (if not deliberately eradicated by the caretakers of the parks rare flora). I suspect that there are quite a few fruits, vegetables, and herbs that in truth aren't domesticated at all, or are not very domesticated- that is to say that they retain essentially full fitness in the wild and given the proper habitat they will establish. Searching through regional floras may give an idea as to which species are apt to do this.
Regular volunteers include lettuce, NZ spinach, orach, miners lettuce. Beans do sometimes but not often and not many. Peas never seem to. I suspect the seed either rots over winter or is very attractive to various beasties. Haven't had tomatoes volunteer here yet though I expect to see lots of Sungold offspring this season as they got completely away from us last season and hundres of fruit dropped to the ground.
That's it so far but we've only been here for 3 years. I expect more as time goes by.
For me the miners lettuce would be my most prolific volunteer, it has not only spread to all corners of our property but now spreading around our local area, behind our hall, down at the river and along the sides of the roads, anyone see that film 'The trifled?. Standard lettuce, tomatoes, garlic chives, Cape Gooseberries and orach would the main self seeding plants, never get onions volunteering though.
I have some things I rarely even save seed from any more. Sunflowers and dill come to mind. Also pimpinellifolium tomatoes and their crossed descendants.
I generally don't keep domestic tomato volunteers although they are numerous. I also don't keep volunteer squash, melons, corn or beans. I don't keep them because many were likely less desirable for some reason or they would not have been left to rot in the garden.
I both encourage volunteers and save seed of some things. Lettuce, turnip and radish for example.
Onions, garlic, horseradish, black and raspberries are examples of things I encourage to establish in what I call a semi-wild state. I love things that produce food without much help form me.
I don't worry too much if what volunteers produce isn't perfect in size, production or even flavor. It has to be pretty awful before I'll cull out a wild or wild(ed) food plant.
I have a fondness for volunteer B. napus kale, because I feel that it is being actively selected towards swede midge tolerance since I do not protect it, so it must be able to avoid enough midge damage to be able to mature a flower meristem.
I very much dislike B. juncea mustard volunteers and I now actively destroy them. I find they rapidly revert to a small plant, early bolting biotype, being descended from mustards that have had their vernalization requirement bred out of them. I am breeding for large plants, and I don't want any crossing with tiny "flash mustards".
A good number of my seed lines I am saving this season are from volunteers. A lion share of my main garden failed this season, and with it several breeding lines I was trying to expand. The biggest emotional loss there was a deviant runner bean I was rather fond of with particularly large brown mottled beans, so it goes.
A smaller more intensive garden I have there were a lot of plants that came up from a neglected compost pile. Most importantly I had a good crop of cucumbers with great taste come up, and a common pole bean with particularly nice large pods. Also in my drive way I had four melon plants come up from where I cleaned out a wheel barrel of last years field neglected melons. As my main melon patch failed those plants were this years melon crop. Three of the melon plants were good, but not special. One however was fantastically flavorful and rich, so it will be the backbone of next years melon planting I am thinking. There is also a few really good chard plants which have become endemic in my garden, a friend gave me beet seeds years ago, which to my initial disappointment were actually chard, I got over the disappointment when I decided they were the best tasting and most succulent chard I have grown. I just harvested a 12 pound chard head from one of then with stems as wide as my hand. I am hoping the seed I saved from last years chard breed true, but there were beet seeds I was saving in the area, so I might have to work to untangle that.
There are weedy ground cherries which I am not particularly fond of that I need to be more through in killing back for a couple seasons lest they make a move to take over.
None of my weedy crops do I think of as great seed, but since alot of my choice seed died in a bad field, I am glad for natures own back ups on several things.
"Wilded" or "weeded" plants are some of my favorites. Currently I have deliberately weeded cilantro (took a while to establish but it's all over the yard now) lettuce, spinach (died out last year), radishes, arugula, and schwarzbeeren or schwarzenberen as I always thought it was called. Oats lasted a few years and then I think I accidentally pulled them out. I'm trying to get cumin established, but so far not even one seedling. :(
I think of it more or less as a last-ditch seed bank, or mulch. If I'm going to have weeds in the yard, I'd rather they be things I can eat. Many of the weeded plants are early spring greens, so I get them when they're ready to come up rather than worrying about the appropriate planting time.
Parsnip has set seed looks like. Also topsetting bulbs forming on some unknown variety garlic I got as misidentified topsetting bulbs at a seed exchange.
My only peas and favas this year were volunteers.
The favas I left a lot of seed on the plants. Only got a few. Curious if could up that by increasing it separate for a few years, but dubious that would work.
In previous years I have had the red stemmed "chinese-type" Malabar Spinach volunteer in my garden. (Basella alba/rubra)
I was quite surprised!
(The other red stemmed variety that I have originated from further south, so does not produce seed in my climate. I have to bring plants indoors in the fall if I want seed.)
Most of the tomato plants in my garden this year are volunteers (one exception).
Last year's orange grape tomato is back.
Unlike last year's fruit, which clung tenaciously to the vine, this year the fruit drops at the slightest excuse, even while still green.
It is not impossible that this is a "green ripe" variety, but I haven't sampled them at the green stage yet.
So, some traits that aren't desirable can show up in volunteers...
Good for re-seeding, but not so good for the gardener. :)
Interesting topic all. Italian turnip rooted parsley has seeded for me for over 20 years (from the previous owners) and has travelled with me and friends.
Some accessions of the wild species pea (P.fulvum) have black hard seed coats that have to be chipped to germinate. They will last in the seed bank for years and years I imagine, and could be bred with sativum to maintain that trait. They do as a wild species have explosive dehissance - which is wild type parchment in pods (more paper type fibre in the pods than shelling peas), but (perhaps) suprisingly tasted just like normal peas when young. I am not sure what the antinutritional/toxicity status of those mature peas is with that seed coat is though.
I have never had broad bean volunteer as it always starts to germinate in pod if conditions are damp - and evidently the wild progenitors appear unknown/extinct (Caracuta 2015, Domestication of Faba).
Cheers
Steve
I too am surprised and impressed when "volunteers" come up unplanned in the garden.
I have wondered about how this may effect diversity in gardens. (On both the deliberately cultivated plants and the recurring naturalized populations.)
You hear about how selected mustangs and reindeer are loosely maintained in semi-cultivated herds. Both the people and animals influence each other symbiotically.
I suspect this is happening in my garden every time I spare cilantro, dill, lettuce, and tomatoes from the hoe.
Wonderberries (Solanum burbankii) volunteer extremely easily (whether you like it or not). I highly recommend them. They taste a lot like oranges if you stop and think about it. They get a more berry-like taste in hot weather when left to ripen extra long.
They produce loads of little berries that are loosely attached to their calyxes when ripe. Each berry is packed with tiny seeds. It's easy to lose a few here and there during harvest-time. Toss some berries wherever you want them to volunteer.
Caution: They look a lot like black nightshade (so, if that is a known weed or plant in your yard, be careful to know the difference; I don't known if they can hybridize with each other). Do not eat green berries, nor the leaves.
I like wonderberries on pizza, in frittatas/omelets, and in salads, but I'm sure they're great on loads of other things.
My summer savory volunteered, this year! I hope it keeps at it.
I let some okra volunteer, this year. Yes, I left the dead plants out there over the winter, and one spot volunteered. It's a Red River cross. It's not red anymore!
We get loads of tomato volunteers. We get some muskmelon and watermelon volunteers, too. We get squash growing, too, sometimes, but I don't know where it comes from (much as the walnut tree weeds). I usually let at least one to a few tomato volunteers grow on. Our chives volunteer. Litchi tomatoes sometimes volunteer. I've had ground cherries and tomatillos volunteer.
Sunflowers, calendula, yarrow, camomile, milk thistle, purslane, burdock, borage, Russian sage, arugula, radishes, and things seem to volunteer easily. Even tulips can volunteer (it happens fairly often in our garden). Apples, northern catalpas, peaches, nectarines, plums, black currants, and Siberian elms volunteer easily in our yard. We've had mint volunteer, too (but only after we had it for many years). To get apples to volunteer just squish ripe homegrown apples on plain dirt where you want them to sprout.
Plenty of weeds volunteer, of course! Some edible and/or medicinal ones include amaranth, lambsquarter, prickly lettuce, mallow, creeping Charlie, purslane, catnip, horehound, dandelions, salsify, etc.
Things seem to volunteer a lot more easily when they've been grown more than a generation or two in the garden, from saved seed.
Quote from: Steve1 on 2019-08-28, 05:37:30 AM
Interesting topic all. Italian turnip rooted parsley has seeded for me for over 20 years (from the previous owners) and has travelled with me and friends.
Some accessions of the wild species pea (P.fulvum) have black hard seed coats that have to be chipped to germinate. They will last in the seed bank for years and years I imagine, and could be bred with sativum to maintain that trait. They do as a wild species have explosive dehissance - which is wild type parchment in pods (more paper type fibre in the pods than shelling peas), but (perhaps) suprisingly tasted just like normal peas when young. I am not sure what the antinutritional/toxicity status of those mature peas is with that seed coat is though.
I have never had broad bean volunteer as it always starts to germinate in pod if conditions are damp - and evidently the wild progenitors appear unknown/extinct (Caracuta 2015, Domestication of Faba).
Cheers
Steve
Was sorting my quickly harvested peas from last season. I found a bag labeled yellows, orc, and pisum fulvum.
Orc were easy to separate from non orc. And there were some large very black seeds in the mix that I can only ascribe to pisum fulvum. Either they are full p. Fulvum, a natural hybrid, or not at all (not likely given my black seeded pisum Sativum was about 6-10ft away in another row. Thing is, these seeds are much larger than the ones I planted.
I have noticed leaf cutter bees in my garden two seasons ago. They are the types that cross pollinate the legume alfalfa, so it's very possible with my dense pea plantings that they have been pollinating some.
The black seeds did come from a curled explosive pod.
We are growing out leeks that came up from dropped seeds one spring. They grow very slowly but are extremely dense and sweet and stand the winter better than others. My goal is to acquire a line that bolts very late and is good for very early spring leeks, always a time when there isn't much from the garden.
We also had a couple of volunteer Arikara beans a few years back. We don't leave much bean debris in the garden but it's the only time we've ever had volunteer beans and there have surely been quite a few other opportunities. All our Arikara are now descended from those 2 plants.
I suspect they are just ordinary Austrian field peas but they volunteer better than peas ever have in my garden. Starting last year and again this fall/winter.
I spent some time rototilling today and thought about getting back at it later but decided to take it easier on myself. So I went back out but I just spent a little time transplanting a small patch of volunteering things. I transplanted volunteer carrots (my old and volunteering grex), volunteer lancer parsnips, a volunteer pea, miner's lettuce two different sorts of Claytonia rubra I think, Siberian kale, and some New York hardy corn salad. I may rototill the source areas if the transplants thrive. Some of the beds I've been letting the volunteers go in for years are now starting to get grassed in and could use some good rototilling- this is all in the oldest fenced garden. I tried to establish a great big patch of Siberian kale on a hügelkultur mound in an unfenced area but the deer ate it down to nothing over the winter and I think the vast majority of it is dead now. Though some garlic was sprouting from the bulblets I tossed on last fall when I started to replant a couple survivor beets onto it. I changed my mind and planted the beets with the volunteers. I was happy that one of my rototillers started- this is not always the case despite my attempts at precautions. The other may need a new spark plug or more.
I think my Daikon radish has been locally extirpated as has my fennel. I think I extirpated my patch of volunteering Solanum peruvianum when I didn't want it growing with the elites of the promiscuous project in 2020. I have actually been weeding out volunteer tomatoes from some of the more important tomato patches in recent years.
Volunteering of my intentionally planted plants is actually pretty rare here. Mostly it is because conditions are so bad here that it is difficult for most plants to successfully grow here AT ALL, let alone grow with no intervention or help from me. The rather pitiful response from most plants here also means that the actual number of ones that make it to reproduction tends to be rather meagre, so it tends to be pretty easy to catch every seed produced before it is lost.
In fact, I can't think of ANY vegetable that I planted intentionally that has EVER established itself as a permanent fixture. We get the odd volunteer tomato plant coming up from tomatoes we throw out with the garbage. And, once in a blue moon, a pansy or other flower seed manages to survive the winter and come up the next year, but that's about it.
Somewhat more common is the appearance of plants coming up from seed that I never INTENDED to grow. Thanks to all of the leftover material from my seed searches that I have thrown out to the birds and other animals over the years, my yard now has more or less permanent populations of both rice beans (Vinga umbelliferata) and senna (Senna obtusifolia). However I'm not sure either of these counts as "volunteers" as more or less all of the plants derive not from previous plants which have reproduced, but from hard seeds that have lain dormant in the ground for a few years until water finally managed to get into them and start them growing. The "feral" rice bean plants rarely make flowers or seeds (and I collect all the seeds of any that do, since they represent the very small subgroup of rice beans that are sufficiently day length neutral to be ABLE to flower and seed here.) And technically, the senna CAN'T reproduce, as no plant that has shown up yet has ever proved to have day length requirements short enough to MAKE it to mature seeds (I had many that made it to FLOWERING and setting pods, but the frost has always come before those pods are mature enough to have viable seed.)
I also had some Egyptian River Hemp (Sesbania sesban) overwinter its seed and come up last year (I was really sort of disappointed when it did, as, until it got big enough, I thought it was the Ground Plum (Astralagus crassicarpus) seed I had planted in that planted THAT year.) The story with that was basically the story with the senna; flowered, set pods, but the frost came before the pods were mature. I think the same thing happened a few years previos to that with another kind of Sesbania (acutifolia, if I recall)
I am almost sure greenberry nightshade (Solanum Opacum) WOULD naturalize itself in my garden if I let it (given how well it grew the time I planted it.) But even if it did, I would never be able to actually USE it, since, without it being in a place I KNOW I planted it, there is too much risk of mixing up its ripe green berries (which are edible) with unripe berries of the American nightshade that is already a native weed here (which are poisonous). And given the birds and such, there is no way to eliminating the native one permanently.
Found a lovely patch of germinating Lofthouse and Kral parsnip seedlings today there are also some Lofthouse carrots volunteering. Next to last year's seed crops.
Quote from: Steve1 on 2019-08-28, 05:37:30 AM
Interesting topic all. Some accessions of the wild species peas have explosive dehissance - which is wild type parchment in pods (more paper type fibre in the pods than shelling peas), but (perhaps) surprisingly tasted just like normal peas when young.
I'm thinking I may sub select some of the Pisum 'Alaska' x P. elatius hybrids in the future to keep the explosive pods trait for easy self seeding. Might make it difficult for hand seed saving though, but oh well.
I prefer the self- seeding property for greens and greens to grow mostly greens that engage in it. It's much easier for me to taste a leaf and decide what genes get garden space for greens than fruiting or rooting plants; spreen/lambsquarters, lettuce, and now rapini are my big ones.
This reminds me I should take my rototiller in, gonna have to make a ramp to get it in the truck.
Tomatillo, California Golden chia, corn salad, miner's lettuce, some half wild lettuce, orach, parsnip, siberian kale, and dill have all returned on their own so far to my 2025 garden.
Also carrots. At least one turnip.
I'm a bit behind on clearing off my grow beds and planting, not that I ever completely clear them. I grow no-till and lots of stuff grows in late winter and early spring so things can sort of hide for a while until I get ready to plant.
So far, I have lettuce, various brassica things, dill, marigolds, chard, poppies, sunflowers, loads of tomatoes, what I think might be nasturtiums, carrots, fennel and Job's tears which was a surprise.
I switched to no till years ago and for a while had a problem with a reduction in volunteer things. I think too much mulching was the issue, so now I'm sure to leave some bare ground around something dropping seed and leaving it bare over winter.
I really like not having to collect, save and plant seeds but it seems to mostly only work with things that make a lot of small seeds.
Also just found a couple little columbine plants. I don't know how it got in the garden the flower beds where it lives is way over on the other side of the house. AND I found the first volunteer sweet potato of the season. That's a bit of a surprise as I didn't think it had really been warm enough for that.