its funny to me

[Tater]

I fret and worry and fertilize and try to create the enviroment the experts say have to exist to grow good plants.
Then I look around there is a tomato growing out of the crack in the pavement from last year, a radichicio growing in our hay field and a romaine growing in a part of our farm that hasnt been touched in three years. All beautiful and healthyw/o any "help" from me. I know these are random examples but do make for thought...not much though. Fret on. tater

[elementfiftyfour]

I often see the same thing in my gardening experience. I do so much to try getting my tomato and pepper seeds to sprout by putting heating pads under the starter try, monitoring the moisture, light from above to heat the soil to just the right temperature and I have about 50% success. But every year there are more and more tomato and peppers starting on their own in the garden from dropped fruit or compost.

The one thing I don't even bother with anymore is my herb patch. After the season ends enough seeds fall to the soil that I just let them start themselves the next season.

[katylaide]

I set up a new garden bed a couple of months ago, put in good compost and carefully sowed some seed, including radish seeds. A lot of the seeds I planted failed to germinate, but I have probably 100 volunteer radishes from the old plants of my dad's that went to seed, some of which are growing in the path and a sorry-looking garden bed that I did nothing to.

[TZ -OH6]

It works the other way too. One of my gardens is on a cleared bramble thicket. Last year I decided to expand a bit on part that had been cleared but not improved, so I simply turned the soil over to stop weeds and planted corn. The soil looked fantastic, but the corn was only 2 ft high at the end of the season. It did much better a few feet away where I had mixed in fertilizer. I had to laugh because I was so shocked that my "virgin" soil was so bad.

[rootsy]

Just goes to prove you can't outsmart Mother Nature...