How do you feel about volunteers?

I wonder why there are not many sunflowers there now? The sunflowers I have are not the ones with the giant heads, but I am going to plant some like that next year.

I don't know either. Maybe farms and gardens are sold to make shops and hotels and offices, so not many left. And the people here may not know what to do with so many sun flowers, I think. What we had was the big sun flowers, that you can eat the seeds. I even had one or two flowers before...

This is so true, gifts that we have and we can share. When I could not grow things out doors, I loved my houseplants. Volunteers add grace to our lives.

I used to have houseplants all over the house. I loved them too. Watching them grown. I remember a pregnant plant I got from a friend. It was so cool.

There was just enough peaches for eating, so far this year. I hope to be able to put some up next year. I have cherry pulp in my freezer I will probably make jam from. I have some apples to deal with, many may be made into sauce. Self sown is probably the more professional term for what I am describing. It sounds as if you take full advantage of what comes up in your garden and raise it to be beautiful and useful.

I am so pleased to have given you a new use of a word. It sounds like your garden is very welcoming to all volunteers. I know that you dearly love your plants and garden.

I have grown pumpkins in the compost bin. I also have, between my two peach trees a pumpkin patch. I let my white pumpkin get overripe and could not use it. I put it out in an area of the yard where I knew it would not be disturbed. Now it is growing and blooming nicely. I wish I had planted it around the sunflowers, though.

How do you cook or eat pumpkin leaves? Inquiring minds want to know. I could go pick some today.In the US there is a lot of talk about the "three sisters" method of planting from native Americans. You plant corn, with pole beans to climb it and pumpkin to shade its feet. I never try to move them unless they were planted in a pot. I just let them run wild. Have you tried a pumpkin soup? I make a lot of things with butternut squash, which I am told are called butternut pumpkins in some places. Because I do not choose to grow corn, I would like to plant my pumpkins at the base of sunflowers next year. Oh, the other part of the three sisters is that you make things that use all three together. Like soups.

Pumpkins are one of the best plants at just sprouting up wherever they feel like it and taking over the entire garden. We have them doing that here and every time I move them, they die, Do I just train them to spread where I want them to go. We always get lots of leaves but few fruit, they never seem to mature as the flowers are not being pollinated properly. But that is OK because we eat the leaves all the time and I don't like the taste of pumpkin!

I do some volunteer work myself, and it is very life enriching. I think we need to be thankful for the things we have and those opportunities. You learned a lot from the farmers you met.

I have had that red message off and on as well. I hate it when that happens. I understand that if soil is really sandy melons grow well. I guess it is a blessing not to have to mow the sand.

lol now my son in law dont know what to do with his mower!

At this point I am keeping the invasive stuff in check. I love your picture. I hope you really enjoy being here on MyLot. I think I may have had choke cherries at another house, but not sure. I will have to research. I have Pokeweed, which is beautiful, and okay for the birds, but I will not try to process and eat it. My grandma told me, years ago that that is what they made lip stain and rouge from.

Thanks GardenGerty! I actually came to myLot several years ago, but before long, had to rearrange priorities and didn't have enough time for myLot. I hadn't forgot about it though! I'm still pretty busy, but hope to find a bit more time for myLot once again. Now that my son has his license, I don't have to spend several hours/day bringing him to activities and waiting for him to be done. I feel like I have a lot of catching up to do in many areas though! Back on thread topic... I was shocked to find a new volunteer (actually 2) by my front door today. There are three steps up to my front door and right next to them in the corner near the foundation of the house, there are two small plants that look like the melon/squash/cuke family. They are pretty small and probably won't get large enough to bear food so I might not ever find out what they are. But it sure is odd! How in the heck did they get THERE!? I'm trying to decide what to do. I want them to get big enough to see what they are, but I'm pretty sure the season will end long before that happens. I wonder how long I could extend the season in the fall for them? Guess I'll have to see how big they get by then to see if they have any chance of developing more under plastic? Anyways, I've been having a few really bad days cuz we had something major break and in need of repair. Then I saw these little guys by my steps this morn and it totally made my day!! Little guys... think I'll have to name them. ;)

Great analogy. I have wanted to plant a sunflower house, but never got around to it. I imagine next year, with judicious moving of plants I may make it. My sunflower forest is in a spot that is not usually very attractive and it is not a place just anything will grow.

A sunflower forest...is that when you have a bunch of sunflowers grow together in a group? I've never heard of the term, or the term sunflower house either. Sounds interesting. Are you growing sunflowers now?

One Pumpkin Patch trip I went on had gourds an they had crossed with pumpkins and with each other. Squash, cucumbers, pumpkins and gourds will all cross freely. You can get some strange things that way.

wow - see, here I am, the big city gal with insect allergies, so I'm not out in the yard gardening if I can avoid it

Enjoy your cherries and other volunteers as well. I love having the cherry and apple trees I have.

We made some yummy yummy jelly out of the evans cherries. From the nankings we only got one jar of jelly which i let mom keep as she cleaned them and made the jelly. i just picked them

My yard is not really lovely, as I do not spend much time on it. I do like having food plants, though. I also find it very important to have trees and shrubs for their positive impact on the environment. If you ever want free trees, check out the Arbor Day Foundation. In the past, if you joined for a really low price, like ten dollars, they sent you ten small trees to plant on your yard, and they also had good bargains for ordering other things.

Lowes gives them away on Arbor Day for FREE. Last year, our local Lowes received so many extras that the girl gave me 20 trees! I tried so hard to keep them growing, but some dried out before I could plant them; the rest are in our former back yard.

Wow - thanks for these tree tips GardenGerty and scorpiobabes! This is sad, but I don't even know when Arbor Day is . . . I better go investigate!! I agree trees and shrubs are necessary for the environment . . . so we really want to do something with the yard - eventually!

So nature has paid you back double. I hope you get many fruits from these two volunteers.

The volunteer plants grow themselves, and do not need much care. I am like you and do not spend a lot of time on growing things.

Ya, i don't like to be a farmer every day for long time, but sometime we are..then it is fun, right?

Many avid gardeners feel that way about volunteer plants of all kinds. I guess I would like to live in a meadow or a forest, where Mother Nature did all the gardening.

Oh I have plenty of those kinds of volunteers as well. I am happy for the blessings though.

Shorty, thanks for reading anyway. How about people? Do you like people who volunteer?

Yes, and then the drought and my dogs did some damage this year...

I would even be proud of those,lol.

Perhaps there is a park or public garden where you can volunteer and work with the plants. It is very rewarding to get to spend time outdoors and making the world better.