Volunteer

June 03, 2026

I went to the eye doctor for my annual checkup today and when I returned Melissa wanted to show me something that had sprouted in the mailbox planter. Melissa has tried to grow several different flowers in this brick planter. The grape hyacinth (Muscari armeniacum) has done well and explode in early spring, but they dwindle and die leaving the box empty during the summer and fall. We have tried a variety of different perennials, but none have lasted through the season, yet alone come back the following year. This year Melissa tried something different by planting a central coneflower (Echinacea) hybrid (sombrero lemon yellow) surrounded by rose moss (Portulaca grandiflora) starts to act as an annual bedding and keep down the weeds. While the rose moss plants are doing well, the coneflower is again struggling. What Melissa wanted to show me, however, was an intrusive weed that was beginning to take over the lower left side of the planter. It was obvious this volunteer was a tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) plant.

When I went online, I found “volunteer” plants in gardening are those that sprout and grow on their own without being intentionally planted. They emerge from seeds dropped in the previous season, spread by wildlife, or distributed through homemade compost. While some volunteers are thought of as nuisances, they can be surprisingly vigorous, cost-free additions to your garden. On the plus side, a volunteer is free and takes no effort from you. They can be exciting to find and can add fun and unpredictability to a well-planned garden. On the minus side, the volunteer can grow in unwanted places, and you can never be sure what you are getting. Seeds from open pollinated plants always produce a vegetable identical to its parent. Seeds from hybrid plants are not true to form and it is more likely the volunteer will resemble one of the plants that produced the hybrid seed, and some hybrid plants will not produce any fruit. The intruder can mess with the crop rotation you planned for your garden and can also carry soil borne disease.

When I saw the volunteer plant I wanted to dig it up and transplant it in the container where some animal had sat on one of my Roma tomatoes. Melissa wanted to let it grow in place and see what it will produce. All the seeds grown in my garden are from older cultivars (heirlooms) but most of the tomatoes are nursery purchases (heirloom and/or hybrid). Since we have never planted tomatoes in the mailbox bed it must have gotten there from an animal or in the compost I used to enhance the soil. This year I also noticed several volunteer plants in my raised beds. These are some sort of unknown squash (genus, Cucurbita) that have sprouted in the rows of beets (Beta vulgaris) and a leafy lettuce (Lactuca sativa) that sprouted after I replanted the spinach with a cucumber (Cucumis sativus). Here again, we must wait and see what is produced.

THOUGHTS: While this is the first time to have a volunteer tomato in the flower bed, I have had a volunteer in my raised beds both years. Last year my sown seed in one of the beds was overcome by large ground cherry (Physalis angulata) plants. These grow wild in Arkansas and some harvest them from the open woods where they thrive. I let them grow after finding out what they were and even tried harvesting them. I did not like the taste and since they were blocking light to what I had planted I tore them out (again, one person’s weed is another’s harvest). When you get a volunteer, you can leave them, relocate them, or remove them. Humans seem to take a similar approach when other people move into their neighborhood. Some are welcomed, some are asked to move to another area, and some are physically removed. Currently in the US, the difference seems linked with ethnicity and culture. Act for all. Change will come and it starts with you.

Sunflowers

April 30, 2026

I have been having difficulty with the viability of some of the seeds I planted for my garden this year. I received the seeds at Christmas 2023 along with the raised beds I placed along the south side of our house. The box had 100 different packets of heirloom vegetables and flowers. Heirloom seeds are open-pollinated, non-GMO (Genetically Modified Organism) plant varieties passed down through generations, and often for over 50 years. These varieties are valued for unique flavor, regional adaptation, and historical significance. Unlike hybrids, they “come true to seed,” allowing savers to harvest and replant identical offspring. I had no problem with the seeds that first years and few problems the second, so I was surprised I was having difficulty growing this year. When I read the packages carefully, I saw any saved seed from a year would be viable for another 3 to 5 years based on the species. I also found while I had been gifted the seeds in 2023, the packages indicated they had been harvested in 2021. That meant all my seeds were going on five years old, or toward the end of their viability. That meant I either needed to plant the seeds this year (and hope they sprouted) or at least plant them by next year and again hope for the best. I decided to go ahead and plant three varieties of sunflowers in two of the beds along the house.

When I went online, I found common sunflowers (Helianthus annuus) are a species of large annual forb of the daisy family Asteraceae that is harvested for its edible oily seeds often eaten as a snack food. They are also used in the production of cooking oil, food for livestock, bird food, and as plantings in domestic gardens for aesthetics. Wild plants are known for their multiple flower heads, whereas the domestic sunflower often possess a single large flower head atop an unbranched stem. The plant has an erect rough-hairy stem and reaches heights of 10 feet (3 m), but the tallest sunflower on record achieved 35 feet 9 inches (10.9 m). Sunflowers bloom in summer with the flower being a “flower head” (pseudanthium) of numerous small individual five-petaled flowers (“florets”). The outer flowers are sexually sterile and resemble petals (ray flowers) with each “petal” consisting of a ligule composed of fused petals of an asymmetrical ray flower and may be yellow, red, orange, or other colors. The spirally arranged flowers in the center of the head (disk flowers) mature into seeds.

I planted Mammoth sunflowers next to the house in the wildflower bed. I figured if the plants grew, they would not block the sun from the perineal flowers that had been established in the bed the previous year. For good measure I planted some common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca), another perennial, between the bed and the Shirley Temple Peony (Paeonia lactiflora) along the front. We had planted Canna lily flower (Canna indica) and several bulbs in the bed on the side yard, but they had never produced. I thought I would give the bed a try with two other varieties of sunflowers (Lemon Queen and Autumn Beauty) this year and added a few more milkweed to boot. If any of these grow it will be a bonus. They were going to expire this year anyway.

THOUGHTS: While I was disappointed with the dwindling production from my seeds, I figured it could not hurt to plant things like the sunflowers and see if they might grow. The vegetables and all but a few of the flowers were identified as annual. Being heirloom, I could harvest the seed and have viable seed for years to come. Now, they have expired and production is tenuous. This is another hard lesson to learn, but better than that when you are in a sustainable situation. I can allow whatever does grow to go to seed and start the process again. As in life, it seems much is learned as a “2 steps forward, 3 steps back”. Samuel Smiles is credited with the quote, “We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success.” Keep trying. Act for all. Change is coming and it starts with you.

Starts

April 08, 2026

After I posted my last blog (Hardiness) I was informed (by Melissa) that the Hardiness Zones had indeed changed and we were no longer in 7b. The update that I had mentioned had reclassified the Arkansas River Valley as zone 8. According to the updated 2023 US Department of Agriculture map, Greenwood is now in Zone 8a. This indicates a moderate climate where average annual extreme minimum winter temperatures range from 10F to 15F (-12C to -9.5C) and the last spring frost typically occurs around March 25th to April 3rd. There is still 10% chance of a later frost lasting until April. That means my thinking I was testing the envelope by planting two weeks early was instead getting my seeds (and young plants) in the ground right on time. That worked out well as when I went to the local hardware store for several bags of potting soil I saw they had a big sale on both flowers and a variety of vegetables. Having already planted my seeds, I decided to go ahead and buy my plant starts as well.

When I went online, I found choosing between seeds and plants (starts) depends on your budget, time, and the plant type. Seeds are often better for fast-growing crops (better value and more variety) like lettuce (Lactuca sativa) and spinach (Spinacia oleracea), beans, and herbs. Starter plants are best for high-maintenance, slow-growing, or long-season crops like tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum) and peppers (Capsicum annuum) to guarantee a harvest. Seeds have the advantage of inexpensive, offer a variety of heirloom choices, and have healthier root systems. They require more patience and specialized equipment (lights/trays) to start them indoors to have them ready for the growing season. Starts can provide immediate gratification, save time, and have a higher success rate for beginners. They are more expensive and have limited variety. Small gardens benefit from buying plants to maximize production, while large gardens can save money using seeds. A mix of both seems best.

Last year I bought starts early and did not get them in the ground for a week. Even though I tried to keep them watered, they looked sickly by the time they were planted and several died forcing me to buy new starts to replace the ones I previously bought. This year I ended up buying my starts early in the afternoon but knew I needed to get them in the ground. I worked into the evening remixing potting soil, planting six jalapeño peppers, five bell peppers, and three varieties of tomatoes. Melissa likes the Sweet 100’s for salads (2 starts), I like Roma (6 starts) for canning pasta sauce, and then Arkansas Travelers (3 starts) for slicing. That left 3 Traveler starts (pack of 6) that I did not have pots for. There was a major rain forecast for the evening, so I pushed on to plant three rows of sweet corn (Zea mays convar) in the bed I had used last year for my Three Sisters (corn, beans, squash). Everything was done in time for the three inches (7.5 cm) of rain to set everything into the soil.

THOUGHTS: Having planted my starts I was ready for the growing season, but still had several starts not in the ground. Monday Melissa and I cleared last year’s potato beds for watermelon (Citrullus lanatus) and honeydew melon (Cucumis melo) starts. I planted the zucchini and spaghetti squash (Cucurbita pepo) in large pots and found three grow bags for the leftover Travelers. In total we have three soil beds, four raised beds, and 27 containers with a variety of seeds and starts. I also believe a mix seems to work best. That is true with my small garden, but also with our nation and world. Every dystopian society depicted in sci-fi movies is the result of a controlled lack of diversity. While that may just be perception, it is also borne out with historic civilization examples. Diversity is our strength, not a weakness. Act for all. Change is coming and it starts with you.

Hardiness

April 06, 2026

The six weeks Melissa and I were traveling occurred when I normally prepare my seeds for planting. I began last year in January planting seeds under “grow lights”. While most of the seeds sprouted, I struggled to transplant them into 3-inch (7.5 cm) pots for the next growing stage. The pots were still under the lights, but only around half of the plants developed their first double set of leaves. Even these struggled when I hardened them off (set outside for a few hours a day) to prepare them for planting in the ground. Those that made it were spindly and slow to mature compared to the other store-bought plants. I had a dilemma. My absence meant I could not take care of any indoor seeds, and my return was two weeks before the last predicted frost. We are in the central Arkansas River Valley in planting zone 7b with an average annual minimum winter temperature of 5F to 10F (-12.3C to -14.9C). This zone is generally characterized by a last frost date around April 15 and a first frost date around November 15. I have tried to use this hardiness scale when determining what and how to plant, but this year I got excited and planted early.

When I went online, I found gardeners rely on the plant-care tags affixed to the plants they buy and one of the items listed is the hardiness zone. A hardiness zone is a geographic area defined as having a certain average annual minimum temperature which is critical to the survival of most plants. The first hardiness zone map was published in Alfred Rehder’s 1927 book Manual of Cultivated Trees and Shrubs. Rehder and Donald Wyman, of Boston’s Arnold Arboretum, did not have the reach of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), which published its first Hardiness Zone Map in 1965. The USDA system provides a rough guide for landscaping and gardening and defines 13 zones by long-term average annual extreme minimum temperatures. Unless otherwise specified, plants in American context have a “hardiness zone” which refers to the USDA scale. The USDA-ARS, along with climate scientists at Oregon State University, has just released a new plant-hardiness map updating its 1990 Plant Hardiness Zone Map to bring it into conformity with the warming trends that have become so apparent to gardeners.

After deciding to push the hardiness scale, I began last Tuesday determining what seeds needed to go into my raised beds. These were a mix of leafy vegetables like varieties of lettuce (Lactuca sativa) and spinach (Spinacia oleracea). Then I planted the first rows of beets (Beta vulgaris, artichokes (Cynara cardunculus). radishes (Raphanus sativus), peas (Pisum sativum), cauliflower (Brassica oleracea), and cabbage (Brassica oleracea). I saved space for a smaller second planting of those vegetables to prolong their production season into the early summer. After Melissa’s success with onions (Allium cepa), I decided to give them another try, planting 50 sets of red onions in the bed I had used for watermelon (Citrullus lanatus). I plan to plant cantaloupe (Cucumis melo) in this bed after I harvest the onions to let it mature in the warmth of the summer. With my seeds in the ground, I need to decide what store-bought vegetables I am going to plant this year.

THOUGHTS: While the hardiness scale warned against planting prior to April 15, my weather app provided a 10-day forecast that predicted the temps would not fall below the 40’sF (4.5+C). Last year we did have a late cold snap where the temps dropped to 30F (-1.1C) on several nights but warmed to 50’sF (10+C) during the day. I protected my plants with ground cloth and uncovered them during the warmer day. They all made it, so I felt confident I could do the same this year if needed. As in life, part of gardening involves using tools (hardiness scales and weather apps) and combining them with intuition and preventative measures. Most innovation comes when we push the boundaries and failure comes from giving up. Act for all. Change is coming and it starts with you.

It’s In

April 14, 2025

It has been an odd planting season (month) this year, to say the least. It started four weeks ago when I went to the soil and mulch supply I had used for the Hügelkultur raised beds last year. I had read that the limbs and wood on the bottom layer would decay over several years and as it does, the soil will sink. At least I did not get the dreaded sink holes that can result when you do not compact the soil into the limbs well enough. I ordered two skid scoops of topsoil but could only get one in my 8×5 foot (2.4×1.5 m) trailer. I realized too late I wanted raised bed soil (a topsoil/compost mix) rather than topsoil. I put the entire scoop into the four raised beds and when I went back for the second load, I changed my order to raised bed soil. I used this to top off the raised beds and put a layer over two additional beds. Melissa is going to scatter a wildflower mix in the bed in front of the house and I was going to put squash and lettuce in the back bed I had used for last year’s three sisters (corn, beans, squash). I misjudged the amount of work this was going to take. After two long afternoons the soil was finally laid down. I breathed a sigh of relief and said, “It’s In”.

When I looked online, I found the Old Farmer’s Almanac says the average last frost date for USDA hardiness zone 7a is between March 22 and April 3. It is Generally safe to plant most garden vegetables after this period, but you need to check local weather forecasts for potential late frosts. We got excited and went to the plant nursery during the last weekend of March and got some great deals on six packs of peppers (Capsicum annuum), tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum), and squash (Cucurbita pepo). I was prepared to put them in the following Monday, but the weather person said there was a “possibility” of one of two frost days (they were right). We put the plants on the porch with Melissa’s succulents where they could get sun and be out of the cold. Melissa was countering the humidity for her succulents, so the fan was running 24/7. The veggies did not like the fan and dried out quickly. We brought them into the house and Melissa babied them. Finally last week I was ready to take the risk and put them all in the ground along with the radish (Raphanus sativus), carrot (Daucus carota), beet (Beta vulgaris) seeds, and a hill each of cantaloupe (Cucumis melo) and watermelon (Citrullus lanatus). I breathed a sigh of relief and said, “It’s In”.

I had worried as I planted the veggies last Monday as several were looking poorly. I mulched and watered them for several days before I bought replacements and replanted five. As the week went on several more withered and died. I removed the store plants and planted seed for several straight necked squash and cucumbers (Cucumis sativus). As I watered this morning, I faced the dilemma of what to do with three tomatoes and two bell peppers that were struggling. It was iffy whether they would survive and if I waited to act it would probably be too late for seed before the summer heat. I went back to the co-op and found a six pack of Cherokee purple tomatoes and two single peppers. That meant I had more plants than planters, but the six pack was the same price as one single (I needed two). I ended up placing two of the tomatoes in the back bed with the squash and found another container for the third. I breathed a sigh of relief and said, “It’s In”.

THOUGHTS: Each time I said, “It’s In”, I thought the job was over. While I could have left the empty containers and garden spaces I was unwilling to do so. I had already invested too much time and energy to quit when I was so close to completing my planting. I did tell Melissa after finishing today that I was not going to buy any more plants. If any fail now their spaces will be reserved for my summer/fall planting. In gardening and life, you need to be willing to overcome initial setbacks. You also need to know when it is time to change strategies and tactics. Doing the same thing and expecting different results rarely works. Act for all. Change is coming and it starts with you.