15 EZ to Grow Volunteer Crops in a Small Garden (Zone 5)

Volunteer crops help us grow more food with less work and lower costs!

15 volunteer crops growing in our garden:
2:01 - Mustard Greens
2:27 - Giant Red Mustard Greens
3:13 - Swiss Chard
3:30 - Kale
3:30 - Collards
4:01 - Tatsoi
4:18 - Claytonia (Miner's Lettuce)
4:48 - Mache (Corn Salad)
5:25 - Parsley
5:41 - Arugula (Rocket)
5:56 - Dill
6:09 - Mizuna
6:19 - Burgundy Amaranth
6:36 - Purslane
6:55 - Red Orach

I'm passionate about an approach to organic gardening that is frugal, easy, sustainable, and works with nature to achieve amazing results. My videos will help you grow more healthy organic fruits and vegetables, while working less and saving money. I don't push gardening products. I don't hype bogus "garden secrets". I provide evidence based strategies to help you grow a lot of food on a little land without spending much or working harder than you have to!

[MockYNinja]

Ground Cherry (Pineapple) self seeded itself in a completely different garden bed this year. Since the kids complained that I did not grow any this year, it was a pleasant surprise, especially since it located itself in a great spot. Tomatoes always comes up in random places, and I usually let most grow as it's fun to see what it will produce.

[staylor]

Chives! Popping up here, there, and everywhere! Zone 8 Vancouver, BC, Canada

[lockwoan]

Useful to know about.... Now to get my vegetable garden prepared, after a certain old one gets taken care of.

[slyplaymike]

I love cross breed hybrids....for the last 10 years we have a unique chilli, lettuce and tomatoes they suite our conditions perfectly....a reward for 22 years of gardening.

[MrsMartadella]

Arugula, dill, mustard greens and parsley volunteer each year in my tiny townhouse garden in zone 5. I also let dandelions, plantains, lambs quarters and purslane grow where they will. If winter isn't too cold, marigolds and nasturtiums like to show up by themselves. This year I have 2 volonteering tomatoes! Everything is green and growing now.

[gardenerofthegalaxy]

My dad lives in a suburb of Cleveland, and last year when I was landscaping for him around this time, I found a volunteer tomato growing under one of the shrubs (Presumably sown from bird droppings since he doesn't garden). Borage is also a great volunteer crop in zone five, as well as Jerusalem Artichokes.

[health.bites.]

Our chives keep on giving along with 3 kinds of sage and oregano. We also have started multiplier onions. I started with 6. Now I have 50. Cilantro self seeds too...much to my husband's delight.

[danelle]

I've never heard of many of your volunteer crops. Yay new foods to try!!
The first year I planted a garden here, we had a HUGE rain that washed all my early spring crops down into the grass. Now every spring I see rocket and other leafy greens growing in my yard, around the garden. Apparently there are a few plants in the wood line that goes to seed each year and replants them in the area, because I have yet to see the flowering plants. Go figure? lol

[tracygarns]

This year I got volunteer cilantro in an uncovered raised bed and tomatoes galore in the hoophouse.

[shannonrobinson]

Each year we get volunteer pumpkins, sunflowers, basil, parsley, cilantro, and purslane. We used to get miners lettuce but our ducks forgot to let them go to seed and they died out. Cheese weed grows too and the leaves are edible when young.

[jamesbraun]

I grow potatoes in my garden. I thought I dug all of them last fall but they came up this spring. I also have tomatoes that volunteer every year, The mustard family is blooming here near St Louis as well. No dig does great for me!

[melanievarela]

I love my volunteers. I have tomatoes, butternut squash, cantaloupe, potatoes and a new Honeycrisp apple (yes, I throw my cores into the yard!).

[saraebberts]

Patrick, you briefly touched on foodscaping your front yard and I'd love to see more about that. We currently have a large landscaped area in our front yard that was neglected while our children were babies and toddlers. This year I'm playing catchup on the neglect, but this fall and next spring I'd like to take out some of the ornamentals and do some foodscaping. A Video or 2 on transitioning old landscapes to foodscaping would be wonderful!

[DaleCalderCampobello]

I love anything that self seeds and comes back on it's own in the climate. I have a number of things in the hoop house that I haven't had to re-seed in years.

[ConradCardinal]

The only volunteer food crops we have are wild alpine strawberries (they just started growing in the yard one year, so we went with it) and our raspberries try constantly to take over everything near them. Right now they've taken over a 4x4 and a 6x5 raised bed that we have, but I let it happen so we can dig them out and make a bit of a hedgerow at the back of our property... a delicious hedgerow lol

[RobBackyardGardenerr]

Great video! I love seeing your garden and I like that a lot of it stems from volunteers. More than 1/3 of this year's tomatoes are volunteers for me and luckily the quality seems true to seed! Thanks for sharing!

[Jdonov]

My greatest self sower is dandelions. It is a excellent cold weather crop that has so many different uses. You can roast and grind the root to make a coffee substitute. You can eat the greens. The biggest plus to dandelion is they flower very early in the spring and provides early forage for native bees like carpenter and bumble bees.

[michelepaccione]

I got tons of volunteers this year....tomato, ground cherry, arugula, cilantro, celery, cucumber, onion, carrot, sunflower, marigold, even a few beans popped up here and there. Zone 7.

[woodmannc]

We are in zone 7 and malabar spinach is awesome as a reproducer. Thanks for all your videos they are great!!!

[HansQuistorff]

I have leaf lettuce and a wild lettuce that do well I am in zone 7 si I have a longer growing season. I find it best to cut the seed stalks just before they release the seeds and hang them to dry then I can rub them loose at the time and over the bed I want for the next succession. I am also able to keep a succession of potatoes by replanting the small ones from each harvest moving them into the greenhouse over the winter.