It's like the Peace Corps out there

[curly_kate]

@digitS' - I'm curious to see what's going to come off of the squash volunteer that's coming up. The leaves look like the zucchini that I plant, but it's vining out, unlike the zukes which are a bush variety. There's a little round squash on it. It's like a science experiment right in my backyard.

 

[Jared77]

I tend to let volunteers stay unless it's in some place that interferes with what's already growing there. But usually they get to stay. I'm too curious to see what it will develop or produce to yank them.

 

[digitS']

The Mother of All Orache:

Here's an important volunteer in my garden, and the mother of next year's volunteers. Atriplex hortensis, also known as Orache and, I believe, there is a wild version somewhere called Mountain Spinach. It is in the family: Amaranthaceae.

This location is at the edge of the little veggie garden and completely out of the way so that the plant can go ahead and set seeds. Next spring, there will be tender Purple Orache all over the garden and I can harvest it as my earliest "green."

Steve