Clever gardening has its benefits, especially when you let vegetables go to seed. They reward you with abundance and free volunteer food. Check out this weeks Sustainable Food Farm video installment with volunteer potatoes, sunflowers, and kale. There is also an update for the Painted Mountain corn. http://youtu.be/082P1iRju70
Any feedback from you would be most welcome, and all suggestions for future videos will be kept in a list and I will try to work them into the weekly shoot. Fire away!
Gav I haven’t heard the term ‘volunteer’ before. Is that a Gavinism? The video is great – short and to the point. Your garden is looking great Gav.
Hi Sarhn. I guess it is. I figure that nature has volunteered to feed us with these special plants, so I gave it the name Volunteer food. I have been using it since I first experienced the phenomenon during my second growing season! x
Hi Gavin. I really enjoyed your video. Loved this personal tour of your garden and the opportunity to see the advantage of letting our veggies go to seed. These volunteers look so healthy.
May I say, a very professional opening to the video, like being at the pictures !!
Thanks Jean! Love the feedback.
Gavin,
As a grain cropping scientist, I can assure you that seed germinating from last seasons crop are referred to in the trade as: “volunteers”! Mostly they’re a problem as they can maintain pest and diseases over the summer and autumn – “a green bridge” for these unwanted accompaniments to have a rack at next years crops.
My wife calls them “surprises”… Which is cute and probably accurate when you basil/lettuce/coriander self seeds!
I personally am a little serious about crop rotations which make me nervy about the self sown additions to the patch!
I enjoy your efforts and must take time to pickup on your ample backlog of videos!
Thanks for the assurance Chris. First time I have come across the term green bridge. I will have to keep that in mind.
The painted mountain corn is ultra pretty to grow. The colour in the stems passes over into some of the leaves. We’re harvesting ours now and although I’m still learning about pollination (sporadic), the corn that has set fruit and matured is delicious! 75% is pretty good germination for sweetcorn. I think that’s about the standard that was written on the pack?
Nice work on your sunflowers. I never got around to sowing muine and with what appears to be the very early onset of autumn (leaves dropping and 2C the other morning, thankfully frost free) I wonder whether I should bother this year or not. :/
I think with permaculture principles, if you’re planting all sorts of things next to all sorts of things, diseases and pests ahve a harder time. In saying that, planting the same crop over and over also depletes all the same nutrients each time, leaving your soil deficient in specific nutrients. Then again, when nature self sows, you have to think she knows what she is doing right? Love your volunteers. I leave my titchy spuds in place to grow for next year. I also composted my green ones which resulted in a bumper early crop this year. 🙂