
(The Minnesota Star Tribune)
Plants do the darndest things
By kimjpalmer
I was watering my hydrangeas a few weeks ago when I noticed what appeared to be a new weed poking up between two Endless Summers. I reached to pull it, but then changed my mind. It looked like a tiny tomato plant. I lifted my fingers to my nose and sniffed. It most definitely WAS a tomato plant.
Figuring any homegrown tomato is a good tomato, I decided to let it grow and see what happened. Then I went on vacation and left my garden unattended for two weeks. Apparently, it liked all the hot steamy weather. When I returned, there were THREE big tomato plants growing amidst the hydrangeas. The first one even had a few flowers.
This was a mystery. While I grow tomatoes in containers on my deck, I've never had them in the front yard. I've been in my current house 14 years and never, ever seen a tomato plant there. Why now?
I know volunteer plants happen, and tomatoes, in particular, seem to pop up in strange places. But it still seems mysterious and a bit miraculous. Did a bird deposit a seed there? Did I drop one myself while carrying a plant to the deck?
My tomato visitors reminded me of a woman I interviewed a few years ago. She had planted a memory garden in honor of her beloved and recently deceased grandmother. Granny had always been a veggie gardener, who thought gardens should be practical and edible. But her granddaughter had always preferred flowers, so she filled Granny's memory garden with blooming plants in Granny's favorite colors.
But the garden had other ideas. Tomato volunteers started sprouting all over her garden. At first she pulled them out. But there were so many, she finally decided Granny's spirit was having her way in the garden.
I like that explanation as well as any.
My big new tomato plants look messy and just-plain-ugly sprawling next to the hydrangeas. But I'm going to leave them there for now -- and hopefully get an extra tomato or two. What kind? That will be another mystery.
What volunteer plants have visited your garden? And do you pull them out -- or let them grow?
Several home watch businesses joined together in the Minnesota Home Watch Collaborative to stay vigilant across the whole state.