A Volunteer Raised Bed

[AlittleSalt]

One of our 12x5.5' raised beds has many volunteer tomatoes growing in it. I just took bamboo skewers and marked every volunteer or group of volunteer tomatoes. There are 29 skewers in that bed and more than 29 tomato plants.

I was thinking about a thread were Carolyn was talking/writing about letting tomatoes sprawl. (I don't remember the thread title). But these volunteer tomatoes in this bed could be left to sprawl? I had planned on planting peppers in this bed, but peppers will grow anywhere here - I'll just have to figure out where. We have 10 acres, so growing space isn't a problem.

I would imagine the volunteers are mostly cherry tomatoes since that's what I grew most last year and the years before. Those tomatoes were grown around 100' away from this new bed.

Anyway, what would you do in this situation?

[bower]

Salt, I know what my Mom would do.... let em grow!
Nothing wrong with a hippie style bed - your place looks great BTW, I was just admiring your onions in another thread. You can afford to have one sprawly untidy bed of random or crossed cherries... why not. Especially if you have another place to put your peppers.

Mom has a lot of volunteer kales and brassicas every year, and that got to be a problem because they were never spaced properly and she wouldn't let me touch em. A lot of them ended up as baby greens, for sure. But you can't beat magically appearing vegetables.
With cherry tomatoes I don't think I'd worry about the spacing unless they're within a few inches of each other.. even then it may not matter. I grew six cherry toms in one large container last year and they did just fine.

[MissS]

My brother had a space where he planted too closely and allowed the plants to sprawl. It was filled with aphids and white flies and the resulting disease issues. It became a mess. It us entirely up to you but I would consider what issues usually occur in your gardens and then decide if you still wish to do this.

[AlittleSalt]

Bower, thank you. We're working on making it look better out here.

Last year, I had around 10-12 extra plants that I planted in an open air compost bin. At first, I was just tossing the plants in it and then decided to plant a few of them in there just to see what would happen. I left them to sprawl, and it looked interesting.

In the past 5 years, I've grown everything as vertical as I could. They were grown vertical to be easier on our back. Tomatoes have been grown in cages and supports. This year, I'm trying a couple new-to-me types of tomato supports and a lot more pruning. From 2010-2014, I used 5% 7 dust, but read a lot of negative stuff about that. Last year, I used Garden Safe Fungicide 3 and Triazicide, but with all the record breaking amount of rain, who knows if they had any effect? This year, I'm going to use Daconil and Worry Free to combat disease and bugs. I still have some of the other left from last year as well.

Patti, we do have a problem with aphids and grasshoppers and of course - other annoying bugs. Grubs and cutworms have always been a problem here. I've never lived anywhere in Texas without those same irritating bugs and worms.

Growing and letting them sprawl is new to me even though I "Sort of" tried it in the compost pile. It didn't help that I kept throwing leaves and grass clippings on top of the plants - but even then, they tried to grow through it all. We had 73 inches of rain last year. Our average total is closer to 37 inches of rain. So last year, I learned what I could from an odd year.

I've had a lot of volunteer plants in past years spread all over our main garden. Some did very well, and others grew a useless plant. What perplexes me, is to see so many volunteer tomato plants growing in a 12' x 5.5' area. There are 3 other raised beds the same size in this same area with only a few volunteers in one raised bed. It looks like I went out there and tossed in a bunch of seeds in this one bed with all the volunteers.

I did put a lot of tomatoes in the compost bin that the rains ruined, and we have a lot of cardinals that feed in that compost bin. Come to think about it - a lot of those tomatoes tossed out into the compost bin were split Sungold, Blush, Russian Mini Yellow, Snow White, ...so many.

[My Foot Smells]

Evidently a tomato seed can still be viable after going through the human digestive system.

[imp]

My advice may be different than your choices, but I will say what I would do if it were me.

I would probably thin them some, especially if you are going to let them sprawl, and plant the thinned ones else where- I do have a soft spot for anything that determined to grow and if you are just eating them up ( canning, freezing, etc.) for yourself, who cares what they are named when they are in your belly?

So, if you spread them out some, that might lower and negative disease pressures fro0m sprawling them.

Weirdly, Early Girl always has done better for us as a sprawl versus being caged or supported.

[AlittleSalt]

Imp, I'm definitely going to have to thin a lot of them out. There are some growing in groups of 3 within a 5 inch space. I just watered them and found a few more. We missed all the rain and hail today by around 5 miles to our north. It barely sprinkled here. I am glad I had to water this evening.

[imp]

The rain has not happened here - yet. Supposed to be a good chance through tonight, but I am not liking that it is still here. I mean STILL. Not a whisper of breeze.

I associate that with tornadoes or earthquakes. I'll take the earthquakes over tornadoes any time.

[Tracydr]

Originally Posted by imp

The rain has not happened here - yet. Supposed to be a good chance through tonight, but I am not liking that it is still here. I mean STILL. Not a whisper of breeze.

I associate that with tornadoes or earthquakes. I'll take the earthquakes over tornadoes any time.

Yeah, know what you mean.mhad both when we lived in Lawton.

[AlittleSalt]

Here they are ripe compared to a quarter. The only two tomato varieties we remember growing that are shaped like these are Blush and Juliet F1. The volunteer tomatoes are nowhere near as big as either of those varieties.

The Blush were grown beside Russian Mini Yellow (A tiny tomato) Neither are red or pink.

The Juliet F1 was grown beside Matt's Wild Cherry - I think the Volunteers are a cross of Juliet F1 and Matt's Wild cherry - that would explain the shape and the plant producing like a wild cherry tomato.

[AlittleSalt]

I don't like STILL air near storms, and an orange hue to the clouds tells me it's time to get to a safe shelter - ASAP.

Separate

I was noticing some of the volunteers have dark purple main stems. I know that doesn't necessarily mean they are Black or Blue varieties, but maybe? I did grow Black Krim and at least 5 blue varieties last year.

[Worth1]

They are just young and it is still a little cool.
I hate to sound heartless but hoe the things up and grow your peppers.
It is getting too late in the year to be growing seedlings and as far as I am concerned a waste of space and time.
Plus you have no idea what they are and will end up with countless mystery plants.
Yes I have let them grow myself but knew what they were from the get go.

Worth

[Gardeneer]

I believe in growing what I want to grow, not growing something that happens.
Besides, the volunteer come too late, we don't know what they are. If the parent was hybrid you don't know what you are going to get ..

Gardenee

[AlittleSalt]

After finding out how big the Peppadew pepper plants get (5') and 3 Bishop's Crown plants (4.5') to plant somewhere. They would fit in that bed.

[imp]

It's not too late. Now, I tend to come after A Little Salt, temps and plant out wise, and Worth, you are quite aways ahead of both of us, both due to the thing of being south of both of us and the escarpment. Your tomatoes are setting some fruit, Salt's are in and growing, mine are not in yet. Like the old real estate saw, Location, location, location! <smile>

If he wants to grow them and has room, he should grow them. Just more tomatoes, that's all.