A neighbor mentioned to me that our neighborhood association was once again hosting a plant exchange (last year was the first one), so I headed over today. Last year was really nice – 5 free plants per family (4 annuals, 1 perennial), with free window boxes and potting soil. When I went today, I expected it to be a similar set up, but I found out once I was there that they had changed the way it ran.
First of all, there were no free plants, because funding was significantly lower this year. You could only get plants by paying with a ticket. How did you get tickets? They couldn’t tell me in a straightforward way, but after paying $10 for dues to the neighborhood association, they told me I was entitled to 2 tickets as a member of the association (wouldn’t tell me before that). I later found out that for every plant you brought to exchange, you could get a ticket, too.
I decided I would use my tickets to get perennials, since I’d rather have plants that will continue to come back year after year, than to get ones which will need to be replanted. There were several to choose from, but as soon as they told me one of the choices was purple coneflower, I told them I’d like two of them. I don’t know what made them ask – maybe because I answered them so quickly – but they asked what made me choose that. I told them that it was a medicinal plant, echinacea. But then one of the women told me I wasn’t able to use my tickets for any perennials because I wasn’t a member of the association. When I told them that I was, they agreed that I could have one plant, but only one.
So I went over to see if they had any vegetable or herb plants. There was one tiny pepper plant and one chamomile start that someone had brought, and when I asked the woman in charge if each of those were a ticket, she said yes, but then reconsidered and told me to take one for free, that they were going to have plants left over and the plants were so tiny she didn’t want to ‘charge’ me for it. I took the pepper plant – none of the pepper seeds I started were successful.
Then I got a beautiful purple coleus plant with my remaining ticket. When I got home, I seperated the echinacea plant into seven individual rootings, and planted each one individually. I did this with the hope that they’ll spread. Echinacea is a wonderful herb that is a powerful germ fighter, and I’ll be glad to be able to harvest my own instead of ordering it. It’s nice to have a flower that looks nice and is so useful, too. This joins sage, fennel, and red raspberry as medicinal herbs that I’m now growing and will be able to harvest.
Especially in increasingly difficult economic times, with so many people becoming interested in gardening (for food), I think it’s a shame that they didn’t have vegetable plants or herbs available. It’s almost as people in charge only wanted decorative plants that have no other purpose. They did have day lilies available, which have edible bulbs, but I don’t think most people know that, and I don’t really care for how they look. And anyway, someone there told me that if I want some, I’m welcome to come to her house and dig them up for free.
There were also two free trees available from the city, willow and (I think) hawthorne. I asked why those two trees were selected – in my opinion, fruit trees would be more useful – they told me because they are hardy. I don’t have a large yard and wasn’t interested in filling up valuable space with trees that didn’t have much of a purpose, so I passed on those.
When I got home, I asked the girls to dig up some tomato starts from our garden and take them to the exchange. Two women volunteering told me that lots of people had been asking about vegetable plants and specifically wanted tomatoes, but no one had brought any. When I mentioned that I had plenty, they asked me to bring some. The girls went for me and took ten tomato plants to the exchange, but an unhelpful woman in charge gave them a hard time, acting as if they were trying to deceive her in some way. (Another volunteer tried to explain to her that they were just bringing plants to exchange, but wasn’t successful.) She would only give them 5 tickets for the ten plants, instead of ten. After they told her they thought they were supposed to get a ticket for each plant, she begrudgingly gave them another two tickets, and the girls were left with the unpleasant feeling that she was trying to cheat them because they weren’t adults. I told them she was probably operating from a mindset of expecting people to be dishonest and try to get more than they were entitled to, and therefore was being protective of the exchange, not that she had anything against them specifically.
They brought home another coleus, two marigolds, and four begonias. I don’t especially like begonias, but one of the girls did, so it’s fine with me. We did some planting earlier before leaving to the exchange, and put in a row of marigold seeds in front of the tomato plants, since they are a bug repellent. I’ll put the new marigold plants next to some other garden plants that will benefit from them. The begonias went into the window box, and I have to figure out where to plant the coleus – I love how coleus look!
We also planted seeds for eggplant, cucumber, yellow summer squash, and green beans (bush). I wanted to get some acorn and pattypan squash seeds in (we already put in butternut), but we didn’t have enough time. Maybe later tonight when it’s cooler we can plant them. We noticed some plants started growing in the compost pile (not the tumbler, which heats everything so that seeds are killed), so we transferred them to the garden – it looks like they are watermelon. I’m really astounded by how many, many tomato plants I have that seeded themselves, either from the compost pile or from last year’s plants. I’d guess that I have at least 50, probably more. We’ll see if it’s possible for us to grow more tomatoes than we can eat!
The rest of the garden is so far BH looking good – we picked the first three strawberries this morning, the snap pea plants are zooming up, the beets are coming up nicely, and we should be able to harvest some lettuce very soon. The weather we’ve been having has been great for the garden, I think – lots of rain and thunderstorms in the evenings, with warm and dry days. I haven’t had to worry much about doing watering!
It’s really gratifying to watch the plants coming up. I’ve said it before, but there’s something about planting things yourself that warms your heart and is so satisfying. I don’t know if whatever the garden will yield will justify the time involved (not much expense this year), but gardening is a valuable skill to learn and I find the time outside working in the yard relaxing.
Avivah
What kinds of tomatoes are your “volunteer” plants from? If they were originally from hybrid seed, you may not get much fruit from the self-seeded plants. (And the fruit won’t have the same nice properties as the parent.) On the other hand, if they were from a true-breeding variety, they should be OK.
The same is true for the watermellon and squash seeds that might be germinating in your compost. In my experience, these don’t usually set fruit unless the parents were from true-breeding seed (which most commercial seed — and commercial produce — is not).
If you have lots of garden space, it’s worth giving these a try. But if your space is limited, you might not want to devote too much space to volunteers of unknown lineage.
Yes, I’m aware that hybrid seeds don’t reproduce true to the parents – I’m willing to take the chance and see what will happen. I don’t have a huge amount of space, but I’m also planting watermelon and squash seeds so the starts will be an addition to what I have planned, not in place of them, and we’ll have something even if these starts don’t produce. Last year one of our best producing plants was butternut squash that came from a seed from a supermarket squash. I didn’t realize until after we planted it that the concern you expressed above was relevant to it, but it surprised me and went on to give a few very large squash.
I’m moving towards only using open pollinated seeds, and by next year I hope all of my seeds will be open pollinated. The seeds I buy from now on will only be OP. But for now I’m still using up the seeds I bought before I knew there was much of a difference.
I figured you probably knew. I’m all for experimenting, as long as you are aware that the yields may not be as great.