JodiInVA-USA
Full Member
Posts: 29
Joined: Sat Dec 27, 2014 8:16 pm
Location: Northern Virginia - Zone 7a

Unwanted volunteer tomatoes

I'm in year 2 of gardening. The long-term goal is to have 4 raised beds used for annual vegetables on a rotating basis. So far I have 2 of the beds in place, and at the beginning of this season I planted my "extra" seedlings in the extra garden space that is to be filled by next spring with the last 2 beds because I couldn't bear to throw away the ones that wouldn't fit in the existing beds. Many of the extra seedlings were tomatoes which have grown like crazy and produced a lot of tomatoes on the ground (I didn't stake these "extras") -- most of which have rotted and/or been half-eaten rather than harvested. ("Failed" experiment - good lesson learned!)

I also have found this year that I've had tons of volunteer tomato plants in unexpected and unwelcome spots - I think either because I seeded my compost pile then distributed the compost, or maybe because animals transported the seeds, or whatever.

So here's my question: If I build the last 2 beds over this space that currently has a bunch of wild tomato vines with rotting tomatoes on the ground, am I destined to have raised beds full of volunteer tomatoes next year (and maybe beyond)? The beds will be about 10" tall, filled with fresh (tomato-free) soil. Will that smother the seeds that are in the ground? Are there techniques I should use between now and spring to somehow remove or kill all the seeds in the area?

Thanks for your info/ideas!

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applestar
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Posts: 30514
Joined: Thu May 01, 2008 7:21 pm
Location: Zone 6, NJ (3/M)4/E ~ 10/M(11/B)

Put down a flattened corrugated cardboard or 4-5 layers of "newspaper" sheets. (I actually use 2-3 layers of shipping Kraft paper) before you add the good weed seed free soil.

But unwanted tomato seeds won't sprout under all that sdded soil though they may if they get dug up to the surface. Fortunately tomato seedling's are easy to recognize and you can just treat them like any other weeds.

dtizme
Cool Member
Posts: 90
Joined: Sat Jul 06, 2013 10:23 pm
Location: Port Elgin, Ontario, Canada. Zone 5a

I had something similar happen and I know for a fact it was from my compost bin. Unfortunatly where my bin is doesn't get much sun. I tried growing some carrots last year in a 5 gallon pail and used pure compost from my bin. sure enough I got a few volunteer tomato plants along with my carrots. The only area that was affected was that pail. Just glad I didn't use that compost on my raised beds or holes or that year would have been 1 big mess.



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