Volunteer cabbage plant
volunteer
A noun
Often used attributively: an unsown plant or crop of vegetables or grain that comes up from old seeds either late in the season, after harvest, or before planting in the spring hence adverb volunteer = spontaneously.
1915 Dingus Word-List VA 192 = a plant growing without being purposely sown: “The volunteer oats was good.” 1957 Broaddus Vocab Estill Co Ky 83 volunteer crop = plants that come up the following year from seed dropped, or plants left standing at harvest time; volunteer onion = onion that keeps coming up every year. 1957 Combs Lg Sthn High: Word List 107= a vegetable or plant that has come up in a garden or field without having been planted or sown; that is, from seed or root that has lain there from the previous season. 1963 Miller Pigeon’s Roost (July) 25) The writer has mole beans growing in the garden again this year. But I don’t have to plant them anymore. They just come up volunteer.
B verb of a crop: to grow spontaneously after the first crop has been harvested.
1915 Dingus Word-List VA 192 = to grow as a “volunteer”: “So much wheat volunteered that I let it stand.” 2012 Blind Pig (Jan 11) We’ve got things blooming that should have been killed by a cold snap and/or shouldn’t be up till late spring for heaven sakes, theres’ a second crop of lettuce volunteering in the garden.
—Dictionary of Southern Appalachian English
I am fasciated with volunteers. It absolutely amazes me that a seed can lay out all winter and then sprout when warm weather arrives and grow into a beautiful plant. Not just grow—but thrive!
Volunteers always do better than the plants I start and care for.
We have several volunteers in our asparagus bed. We added compost to it in early spring and I’m sure that’s how the seeds where “planted” there.
There are two fine looking pumpkins, several winter squash, a tomato plant that is loaded, and a beautiful cabbage plant.
By looking at the leaves I think the pumpkins are Chamber’s Creek pumpkins. The tomatoes look to be Juliets although none have ripened yet. And I can’t say for sure whether the squash are really big butternuts or green and white striped cushaws.
We have volunteers in other areas of the gardens.
The tiny tommy-toe Matt’s Cherry springs up everywhere you’ll let it. I always let a few grow in my flowers and in the edges of one of the raised beds in the back.
There’s a volunteer tomato that is producing in one of the new raised beds on the bank. It looks sort of like the Sausage and Cream variety we grow, but none are ripe yet. As usual we had a couple of volunteer potatoes from peelings I’ve thrown in the compost.
I love our Malabar Spinach but haven’t planted it in about two years. Volunteers come up so thick from the previous year’s vines that I have to pull a lot of it up.
Then of course there are flowers that reseed and volunteer around the gardens. Most notably wild phlox, zinnias, and sunflowers.
Sometimes when I study on the vigorous health of volunteers I wonder if I wouldn’t do good to plant next year’s garden in about November 🙂
I’m always tickled pink to come across an entry in the dictionary that references Blind Pig & The Acorn. This one seems extra special since Harvey Miller from Pigeon Roost is also referenced. I do believe Harvey and me would have gotten along just fine.
Last night’s video: Answering Questions: Driving Stick Shifts, Forever Home, Wisdom Shared by Elders?
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I have a question for the Q and A video. I noticed Matt wears a wedding band, but you never have a ring on. Is there an interesting story behind why you don’t where a wedding band or wedding ring?
We have one volunteer strawberry plant. It is getting to be such a big and beautifully full, perfectly green plant with pretty little white blossoms. We are not eating the fruit though, it is in a little landscape bed right next to the foundation of the house where we had to have termite treatment applied, I am scared to consume anything from that dirt. I just admire its beauty. I have had several pansies that self seeded too in several different areas, in that same little bed and in several nearby containers. They are such a little gift of beauty to marvel at and enjoy : )
My Pa was more than a fair hand at gardening. He used to feed his large family (9 kids) and many in the neighborhood. When he had volunteers, he would save seed or take cuttings. He always believed that volunteers were better suited to the area they grew in and would make a better crop from their seeds. He once saved seed from a volunteer tomato. The seeds grew plants more than 10 foot tall and produced a beautiful large fist-sized fruit that was delicious. Those plants produced for a long time, too. We never had any clue what variety the original plant was. I’ve always regretted that those seeds weren’t ‘saved’ for use by others.
Prayers for Miss Louzine and Blessings for all . . .
I remember back home we had an abundance of volunteer turnip salad, but the turnips were not so good. There was also some volunteer cabbage and mama had zinnias to pop up. I remember a few months ago talking about pine tree seedlings sprouting up not in our yard but down the street. They sprout everywhere, whether you want them to or not. Beth’s comment about mimosa trees sprouting is so true. Tipper, I have several Cherokee purple tomatoes as well as a couple other varieties, all doing great, just not ready to pick. We planted them in a raised bed, staked them and have put a panel behind them. Since living in town for about 20 years now, I never wanted to grow anything, didn’t think I had the space, but you inspired me, and I thank you so much. Every day when my husband comes home from work he will ask, ” have you checked your babies today?” The answer is yes, sometimes twice a day. We have never eaten a Cherokee purple, so we are really looking forward to them. I also enjoyed last night’s video. I remember learning how to drive a stick on an old Volkswagen bug. Gee took me a while to learn how to keep from rolling back down a hill, but I got the hang of it, and it was fun. Have a blessed day and praying for Granny.
How long did it take for you to learn the trick to putting the “bug” in reverse? Didn’t you have to push the gear stick down or do something else to get it into reverse. I have never drove one but think I remember something about this.
Praying for Granny and all of you. Will keep Pauline Hill in my prayers as well. ❤️
Tipper that was a volunteer Moss Rose
Tipper this is not a vegetable
volunteer but I had some zinnias in my container and the squirrels and the bugs ate the leaves
my marigolds which I grew from seeds are now cung.up s
o I had no flowers but one day I looked in the mulch.and there was a flower coming up.i checked it with the app and it said Moss maybe the.birds and squirrels felt.bad for me as I have no flowers yet and brought me a seed . but however it got there
it warmed my heart
Jenine-I’m so happy the moss rose is blooming:)
Prayers and good health for granny. We usually have volunteers of tomatoes come up and their even better tasting. Our neighbor has an apple tree and we want a sprout of it to start our own. Just haven’t been able to get one. They are one of the best apples. My husband’s been meaning to get it and try and graft it. I have so many volunteer cherry trees.
I’ve always thought volunteers had to work harder to survive and produce fruit. Maybe God gives them an extra boost of energy for their effort.
Prayers for Granny.
One year we had lettuce go to seed and that fall almost all the defunct garden was covered with the most beautiful and abundant lettuce ever!
Just wanted to say thank you for all your hard work, in helping us living a simpler life. I can’t pin point it, but you definitely bring me back to longing for simpler times, and that means we made few changes to simplify. Like you, we found Dave Ramsey in 2017ish by total fluke. Our 24 yr old son introduced us and helped us with a game plan to become debt free in 18 mo (we could have never imaged that, on our own.) And that in itself is no doubt how we found you, bc the first thing we gave up was Dish, and found YouTube. I love your faith first and foremost, love your kindness and joy! I love the confidence Corie has in her scripture videos, no doubt she has a calling for it! I love your husbands gentle strength and I love how Katie loves her daddy so and loves all that they have in common. Anyway, I just want to say thank you for being the reason we put out a few things in a couple of raised beds this year, first time in years and we canned some bread and butter pickles, again, first time in years…..it felt good!
Lorie-you are so kind. Thank you and I’m so glad you enjoy what we do!
I would like to send something to Katie. Is there a PO Box or address I should use?
Thanks! Love you guys!
Wadena- thank you! You can reach Katie at PO Box 83 Brasstown NC 28902 🙂
Oh my goodness, I have a volunteer tomato plant that has appeared about 5 inches away from my two cucumber plants. My cucumbers and tommy toes have been producing a bountiful supply of goodness for me to enjoy and share with neighbors for over two weeks. I’m not sure that the volunteer tomato plant which is only about 5 inches tall is going to produce this year but I’m just leaving it alone and letting it go:)
I learned to drive on a stick shift and I’m sooo thankful for the automatic that I have now. Like you I was raised with indoor plumbing and heat, but I remember the well my Grandparents had and winding up a bucket of cold water from it. I’ve also drank from an old artesian spring. As a young child, I remember I didn’t care for their old outhouse and was sure happy to see when they moved close to town they had indoor plumbing:)
Looking back I see what was wonderful about it all was the love, faith-building, fun, happy times of enjoying my family being together. Seeing my family pull together through hard-times and good-times taught me “never give up.”
I love today’s subject matter. Some of the hardiest and best vegetables and fruit are volunteers. I once had so much corn volunteers I let them thrive and was able to harvest lots of corn. I long ago remember my baby sister hoeing and tending a pumpkin on the edge of our yard that volunteered.
As a tiny child. she had learned how to tend to vegetables, and she grew a huge pumpkin. There was a sweet yellow tommy-toe that volunteered every year in one area where they fell. Even after plowed that same little yellow tomato came up same place from the seed from previous year. A volunteer apple tree grew too close to an old shed on my dad’s farm. and had the best tasting apples I ever ate. It was eventually chopped down, as believe it or not in those days apples were so plentiful that culling a tree was not a problem. Grandpa Pierson worked so well with nature, and he grew cherries so thick and big he had to prop the tree limbs. I still am wondering why the birds always wiped my cherries out before I could ever try them. Tipper, you may be onto something, as I planted kale late one year and had kale off and on until way up in the winter. I recently moved into Virginia to a slightly warmer location. Come spring I had a terrible time digging out those kale roots.
God plants the volunteers
He doesn’t put them row.
He puts them is the best spot
So He can watch them grow.
Think about that when pull a volunteer and throw it over the bank!
Just kiddin!
Ed-I love your comment 🙂
I love that Ed! Need to memorize that to teach it to my grand babies.
Really enjoyed the Q&A. I feel like I am sitting out there in your yard with ya’ll. I pray you have a blessed day. Praying for Granny. Take care and God bless ❣️
Tipper, love that you get so many good things as volunteers! Being originally from the Smoky Mtns of East TN, I love those Volunteers, lol!! We got started on our garden way late up at my MIL’s, (we’re in Gassaway, WV, geographical center of the state), and things are just now coming on. The bears tore down part of the fence to get to the apple trees, so the rabbits got the brussels sprouts and some lettuce, but the electric fence is fixed, peanut butter applied, and I think the bears got a taste of 20K volts of pulsing solar electricity, so maybe we are okay for the rest year, ! Please know that Granny is in my daily prayer journal and being lifted up to our Heavenly Abba’s throne every day.
Are the mimosa trees sprouting all around my yard considered volunteers?
Beth-they sure are 🙂
Looked at the weather radar after my earlier comment, looks like Tipper may be getting thunderstorms and rain this morning, I would appreciate her sending the rain down my way, she can keep the thundering and lightning, we have had 2 tenths of an inch of rain in the last month with a good many dry days of 90 degree and above with feel like temps over 100 degrees.
Randy-the radar is right 🙂 Stormy and rainy here this morning. If I could send you some rain I sure would!
We were in the same condition you are til last Thursday. My garden was so dry that on Thursday evening I set up a sprinkler and let it run for about 2 hours. On Friday afternoon a storm brewed up. The sky got dark, lightening flashed and the thunder rolled. With that came fierce winds. The wind blew squash over (which it always does) but it straightened back up. My corn was a different matter. The soaking I had given had softened up the soil so that it couldn’t stand up. About a third of it fell over. Then the storm receded and went away without a drop of rain.
It don’t end there! Early Saturday night it came up another storm. This one had all the essentials of a summer thunderstorm including rain. Buckets of rain! Enough rain that National Weather Service put up flash flood warnings for my area. I even got a weather alert on my phone, which rarely happens here. It rained 4 to 5 inches (my estimate) maybe more. I live on top of a little hill so I didn’t worry about myself but I did about the neighbors. Flooded roads are the biggest problem but I didn’t have anywhere to go anyway. But other people do, some to escape rising water. I drive a factory lifted 4-wheel drive truck, most people don’t.
More of my corn blew over in that storm. It is not a total loss but some people would think it is. Corn won’t stand back up and I can’t prop it up but it will still continue to grow, tossel/tassel, and grow ears even in its supine state. I can’t get through the rows any more but that is an inconvenience I’ll have to deal with. My biggest worry is that creatures bent on destruction have better access to it when it is lower on the ground.
I’m sorry your garden is suffering. I wish you had more rain. Wishing got me a flood. I pray you get just enough rain for your plants to thrive and nothing more.
Ed, I made this comment a few months ago when we were making comments about the cooler and wetter than usual spring. My comment was by the summer we might be wanting some of this rain and cooler weather, boy was I ever right. Areas toward the city of Greenville and above toward Hendersonville, NC. have been getting a little more rain. I live in southern Greenville County and the city is about 30 miles away, that is close enough for me. On today’s 12 o’clock news they told about the rain and storms up that way last night It seems like every year my area is the hole in the doughnut when it comes to summer rain. My dear to me father in law would always say “count your blessings, we may not be getting much rain but we’re are not getting those bad thunderstorms either.” At least I have not been having to cut as much grass. Between my yard and 3 family member’s yards, I cut about 6 acres, no charge, only give me all of the free ice water I can drink and invite me to the family get togethers. My son does the trim work, Because of my bad knees and back, I am unable to do it. I have been watering my small garden and have been breaking Blue Lake green beans and shelling Mississippi purple hull peas this morning and have about a peck bucket of tomatoes I am going to try to give away. I think some of my son’s coworkers want them. Some afternoon thunderstorms forecast for this afternoon, with all of this heat, they will usually be bad.
Last year was my first volunteer Tommy toes and now back again and doing quite well. Those little birds sure have been busy!
I also noticed some volunteer zinnias and other flowers (carried from the neighborhood) are growing well.
Since I live in Tennessee, I’m also a thriving Volunteer
Have a great day and praying for good news tomorrow for your Mother✝️
Granny’s #1 fan here wishing and praying for good health and abundance of green beans for this dear lovely lady and your beautiful mother! I saw a large crocheted cat yesterday that was remarkable being made by an 80 year old lady! I wish granny could’ve seen it. Tipper, I volunteered for the USARMY at 17 and let me just shout out I no longer volunteer for ANYTHING! I learned a really hard lesson, but I learned! Lol Last year, I got in the death mobile and picked up pumpkins after they went to the trash bins of my neighbors. I got about 9 bunches planted around the yard and they all are flowering now. If they make anything, I’d like to let kids come pick them for free! My vision is the whole hillside covered in pumpkins. My cucumbers are coming on hard and Cherokee purples are growing too. My beans are gorgeous all bloomed in purple and my squash it was free too. My motto: if it’s free, it’s for ME! Rain has killed a lot of fauna in the woods and it’s rotten to the ground. Rain is no longer fun, it’s violent and just a moldy killer. It rains to beat the devil and runs off doing nothing here. “Do not ask questions. There’s nothing for you to see here so move along. It’s all good as long as you are TOLD it is.”
Oh yes, volunteers are God’s bonus harvest we call them. God bless Granny too.
I don’t have many volunteers in my small garden. For many years when I was a child we would have a few plants of citrons that would come back up each year. Mother would make preserves out of them, they were no good for any other thing. There would always be volunteer tomato plants around the hog pen. Watching the video about driving, I grew up on a 1947 BF Avery tractor that I now own. I would cry when I was still wearing diapers wanting daddy to hold and ride me on this tractor. This is where I learned to use a clutch at a very young age . In the country age did not determine when you begin driving, it was determined by when your legs were long enough to reach the pedals and be able to see out of the windshield. The first car I drove was 58 Chevy Del Ray (same size as Impala, but did not have the dressed up body) it was three on the tree meaning three speed manual transmission with the shift lever on the steering column. It did not have power steering or brakes, most cars didn’t at this time. I had been driving several years before getting my license at the legal age of 15. I drove my grandaddy’s 63 Falcon for my driving test, it was a three on the tree, the driver’s permit and driving test were just a formality for me. At 16 years old I started driving a school bus. In SC students drove the school buses. All of the buses back then had manual Granny 4 speed transmissions, no power steering or brakes, just a big steering wheel.
Randy, I remember up here in our part of NC, we had 16-year-old bus drivers and the buses were manual. The boy that drove my bus was wild as a buck and on weekends he and some friends would literally race their cars on the road we all lived on late night like 2 am. Daddy wasn’t too pleased to know he was my bus driver, LOL. These days, they were making the teacher assistants drive them and if they don’t have enough, they were hiring folks just to drive. That’s kind of hard to do, go early morning, drive the bus route, then leave, go home, come back and do the afternoon route. Things sure have changed over the years. I hear on some of the buses they have another adult to sit and monitor the kids. Unreal…
Adults (18 or older) have been driving the buses here in SC since the late 70’ or early 80’s. I noticed you said boys but we also had some girls to drive when I drove. The buses were governed to run 35 mph but the boys were always trying to figure out a way to make them run faster. I never had a car to be wild in, a good friend drove a 64 Ford Galaxy with the large 390 engine and 4 barrel carburetor and three on the tree manual transmission. The speedometer registered 120 mph and it would easily hide the the hand as it was called, this is going past 120 mph and no longer being able to see the speedometer needle. Back then this was considered a family car. I liked to drive it Back to buses, there is a shortage of drivers each year and for the last couple of years drivers having to drive two routes with students getting to school or home late. I have two family members drive buses but stopped because of the kids behavior and the authorities doing nothing about it. Back then we brought the buses home each night, drove the route in the morning and parked the bus at school, and then ran the route back home in the afternoon. Out in the country where I lived all students drove the same bus, there was no kindergarten or middle school. Grammar school 1-7 and high school 8-12. Now I would have to drive my vehicle 80 miles ( 4 trips of 20 miles) a day to drive a bus, the buses have to carried back and picked up at a central location (bus shop) each day , morning and afternoon. Back to behavior, now a days parents have kids, send them the off to daycare for someone else to raise and pitch a fit if someone disciplines them. In my day you would have been kicked off the bus and maybe whipped at school and then your parents would have whipped your butt to a fare you well, notice not running to school and pitching a fit with the authorities. The last thing you wanted was for your parents to find out you had misbehaved at school or any where else for that matter. Sorry for writing that but I feel like that is the truth. Yes things are different but not always better.
Randy I was one of those girls who drove a school bus in NC. I got my driver’s license and bus license in the same year.
My Dad taught me to drive on the farm when I was abt 9 yrs old with his ton truck,it had manual transmission. Taught me to drive to tractor also.
When I took driver’s ed
our teacher would always have me drive last, so we could get back to school faster. haha and when I took my bus test I was the only girl with abt 6 boys.
Our instructor ( different one) took us on this dirt road with steep incline and had us pull out
(manual trans ). Again everyone goes ahead of me. Not one could pull out, then the instructor
tell me to go and show the guys how it’s done
I knew I could do it, but
I didn’t want the guys to be mad at me.
So ask him if someone
else could go,and he said “you’re the only one who hasn’t tried”
Well I did it with making a
bobble.
To my surprise all the guys cheered for me.
At least I think they all did. Lol.☺️
I made my Dad
proud. I drove the bus (to drop off at elementary and high school run.
We didn’t have different buses for different ages back then, and there were
pretty much all student drivers.
I Did that until halfway
through my senior year. Then I gave it up. Because I only had to go to school half days by then Great memories
I was 16 yrs old!
Randy, I was too young to drive a bus when I was referring to the wild boy bus driver. Yes, we had girl drivers also. There were lots of drivers that were responsible, just talking about my driver. I grew up on a farm, when I got in high school I barned tobacco for my parents, then helped 3 other families to earn money for school clothes. My senior year I worked a job here in town every day and on Saturdays until lunch, then helped out home. I graduated in June, got married in July and I saved all I could to help out. Yes, I know what hard work is for sure and also when I was a senior, one of my best friends drove a bus. Also, referring to your comment about the VW bug, you had to hold the brake and gas pedal at the same time, took me a while, but I got it. When I learned how to drive a vehicle, I drove my daddy’s truck. It was automatic but it sure was fun driving the VW.
Gloria
I was 16 yrs old driving a school bus but I was that
crazy.
Oops needs correction…
I wasn’t that crazy!
Teresa, some of the high school kids liked to cut up and would sit in the back seats on my bus. I don’t think they were really doing anything real bad. Sometimes I would start off in Granny gear by popping the clutch and quickly shift to second gear, this would cause them to hit their heads twice on the back window. Hitting a bump and bouncing them high enough to hit their heads on top of the bus was another thing. Did you ever cut the engine off while in gear and let the bus coast and then switching the engine back on causing the bus to backfire? Some of the boys split their buses muffler and one split the exhaust manifold on his bus. I guess we did have a wild streak in us after all.
First of all, I’m sure praying for Granny.
I was always lazy with my pumpkins. I let several sit out all winter and I would just cover them in the spring. I did that with squash too. We always had a nice pumpkin patch and more squash than we could eat. Back in 2008, when things were tight for lots of people, we had school friends and neighbors over all the time to pick pumpkins! So many people didn’t have the extra cash and it’s a great memory. Now I wasn’t cooking these, they were for Halloween. So the only requirement was that they were big!
Your garden is beautiful! What a blessing!
I am enjoying the Q&A videos as well as all the videos. It is such a nice thing to listen to people talk, who do things differently, probably have different views, but present those things in a way that is not argumentative or doesn’t make you feel like you are being “ put down”. I was raised eating meat, my Daddy usually raised a beef or bought one as well as a hog . Our freezer was stocked for the winter. Now….my husband and I choose not to eat meat. It just does not agree with our stomachs anymore…..the looks you can get when you ask for dairy and meat free options.
Again , you are a breath of fresh air in this world where so many people would rather argue than have a nice discussion. I am glad that God has blessed you with this venue. I think He is using you to in a very special way.
Okay….time to get to the garden before it gets too hot!
I’ve tried for years to get “old man’s beard” to resow. It’s real name is cleome, but we call everything like our grandparents did. It never comes back, but I tried again this year. We’ll see! Our garden is a pitiful sight. No rain forever then we had powerful wind and rain the other night and everything is on its side.
Praying for precious Granny! She has become so dear to so many! May the Lord be gracious to her!
The power of a seed, the germination process is an amazing thing. God did that. “And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. Gen.1:12.
Larry, I saw a comment the other day that said that the real “super power” nowadays was planting a seed and watching it grow to a tomato. I knew the intent of the poster, (a prepper, like me), but I couldn’t help but think, NOPE! That has nothing to do with us and everything to do with the Master of the universe Who called this world into being!! He is our Heavenly Father Who STILL keeps His eye on the sparrow, knows every hair on our head, and HE causes those tomatoes to grow! Thank You, YHWH Yireh, GOD our Provider, for all the yummy goodness from our gardens!!
Loved watching the Q&A and the comical part was when Matt crossed his legs and the look in your eyes seemed to say either, ‘you forgot your pants or dang, you do have legs”….just too cute. It is a look into your sometime intimate lives and it seems the admiration of your viewers. You didn’t say when Granny’s appointment was, but if it is today or whenever, I am praying for some good news. With the would seeming to come apart at the seams, we do need some inspirational and good news. God Bless.
God bless Pauline Hill with love care and protection with healing and health in Jesus name, she had hip surgery a few weeks ago, it got infected,they giving her plasma , something for infection, gonna open it back up , God help her in Jesus name
Norman-I’m sorry to hear that! I will continue to pray for her.
God bless granny with healing and health and love care and protection with peace of Jesus in Jesus name Amen