Volunteers

In my garden (probably most gardens) there are some things that grow great, some that disappoint and sometimes surprises. Volunteers, those plants you didn't plant but show up because of the seeds in the compost or seeds that fell last year. More often than not they don't amount to much, but sometimes I can't resist letting them grow to see what happens. This year my wife planted dill from seed, it never germinated, but in the garlic several dill plants came up voluntarily so we will have dill pickles this year. A stray squash came up in the aisle between the tomatoes and peppers, it turns out to be a butternut and has 4 small squashes on it. A tomato plant right where the sungold cherry tomatoes were last year so I have some cherry tomatoes that I had decided not to plant this year and a cantaloupe that grew in the hugelculture along with butterfly bushes, roses and butternut squash (I planted the squash). Only one cantaloupe on the vine and we ate it today....great! A good year for volunteers, almost makes up for the onions which were a disappointment.