Saturday, April 18, 2009

Welcome volunteers















Most volunteers in my garden are weeds. Every now and then I find a welcome volunteer.

This small vine is a sweet potato. There are at least three places where they've now established themselves. The vine forms a beautiful ground cover and has beautiful purple flowers and produce a large supply of lovely sweet potatoes. They seem to love our sandy soil. The only problem is in the dry season, they loose most of their leaves and that gives way to weeds, lots of them. It then becomes hard to control the weeds because you don't want to damage the dormant sweet potato vines.



This very vigorously growing tomato plant, appeared in the center island next to one of my newly planted duranta cuban gold cuttings. I recognized it the minute it sprouted and decided to leave it. My other tomatoes are now done and succumbing to the heat and humidity whereas this one seems to thrive on it. Maybe I've got a native everglades tomato growing ? The fruit are still small and green but seems to be appearing in great numbers. Looks like cherry type tomatoes.

2 comments:

  1. I love volunteers, unless there are so many that it takes me a couple days moving them where I want them ;) Happy gardening!

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  2. I've had a couple of good volunteers. Last summer, one of my neighbour's crepe myrtle seeds sprouted in a container under the fig tree. Its now about two feet tall and it flowered this fall. I've recently planted it at the back fence where it can grow into a large shrub or small tree.

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