I recently made a new veggie garden bed in my backyard. I used the no dig lasagne method and planted some seeds in punnets while I waited for the bed to be ready. I used compost and sand to raise my seeds but soon realised my mistake. I got nothing but tomatoes in those little punnets! Clearly my compost bin isn't getting hot enough to kill off seeds in the mix. I also wonder whether tomatoes have an ability to prevent the germination of other seeds. Many plants release toxins into the soil to reduce competition from other plants (it's called allelopathy) but I haven't heard of it in tomato plants before.
Anyway, I got cranky and pulled out most of the self-seeded tomatoes. As I'd built the garden bed using compost for multiple layers, I started seeing tomatoes coming up in there as well. I gave up and just let them go, not expecting much. Little did I know, this would be the most successful tomato season I'd ever had! These self-seeding plants produced a better crop than any expensive seed I'd ever mollycoddled into existence.
The zen of vegetable gardening. Sometimes you just have to let things go.
Oh my god, those tomatoes look delicious. Over here it's winter and I'm craving a good summer diet of fresh veggies.
ReplyDeleteAnd I agree, compost tomatoes or just plain old volunteers in the garden from fallen ones last year always turn out to be the best producers.
I spoke to a man at a garden meeting recently and he'd been saving seeds from his tomatoes for 20 years and had selected for low water requirements. He now grows his tomatoes with no watering. Very important in a drought-prone environment like south east Queensland!
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