What to do when a volunteer pops up in the wrong place at the wrong time?
I say let it be.
This is Malabar spinach growing in Bed 1 of the secret garden. I’m not sure if it actually qualifies as a volunteer since it’s seeds that I planted and forgot about.
It was just discovered a few days ago when I lifted my giant beefsteak tomato plant off the ground. Underneath were two plants with red stems that did not look like weeds.
You would think I would learn by now not to harbor mystery plants. But I am a curious sort of person and I’ll often take a road just to see where it goes. My last brush with a mystery plant has been haunting me for the last year. I got a free plant from the library giveaway that they do when the Master Gardeners give a talk each fall. I think it was a calendula or a daisy or some such yellow flower. Well, it went to seed and died. Then something popped up in its place. So I thought I would let it grow because it could have reseeded itself. Or it could just be a weed. The mystery plant turned out to be a weed, it grows all over the garden beds and containers, and now I know to just rip it out as soon as I see it because it is a menace!
I recall that I had a failed spinach and lettuce bed there in Bed 1 some season ago. I planted big Boston lettuce, Parris Island romaine, and red Malabar spinach. I can’t remember if this was before or after the failed three sisters garden. Well, the Bostons and Malabars never showed up but I did have some scraggly romaine, which we never tried to eat. This marginal success led me to believe greens will be just right for the secret garden, and I have planted more leafy greens with gusto this season.
As soon as I saw them, I labeled these two new plants as a spinach. I mean, I was not about to blindly eat a leaf but I was around 85% sure it was a vegetable. Today, it is most definitely confirmed that this is the Malabar red. I now know this for 100% sure because I found the old seed packet for it that I picked up at the library some time ago. I had repurposed the packet for snapdragon seeds, and just so happened to have a hankering for snapdragon planting today, which led to the discovery.
I love our library’s seed packets! You can get up to 5 free seed packets provided by the Master Gardeners, and they’re stored in a little old timey card catalog with a display of gardening books. Sure, there aren’t as many seeds as what you could buy in the store, but the varieties are ones we can grow in our area and for free ninety-five I couldn’t be more pleased.
So, back to the spinach. Being a beginner, back when I planted the seeds I envisioned the new spinach plants would be stout little things. After some Googling today, I found out this is not so with Malabar spinach.
It’s a tropical variety that does best in the heat (over 90 degrees) with tons of water and is a vining spinach. What?! This presents a couple problems.
Problem 1. We are in the fall planting season right now, which means I am clearing out old stuff (sans beefsteak tomato) to make way for the new. Why do these two new little red stems even exist right now when they are at their best in the summer? They should have had the decency to make their presence known a few months ago and I would have planned accordingly. And I wonder: did I plant this at the wrong time long ago? Or did it just pop up now at the wrong time? Did the tomato plant stunt its growth and that’s why the spinach was only found when the plant on top of it was removed? No one knows but the plants, and I remain convinced that the secret garden is named correctly.
Problem 2. Vining spinach needs a trellis, which would shade other plants. Alternatively it would choke out other plants. I can see in some circumstances with a little planning, having a vine that can survive the summer and provide shade would be an absolute boon and I’m for sure going to add this to my mental toolkit of how to get shady. However, in a garden that is already plagued by shade this presents a problem. Not to mention the position of these particular plants is right smack dab in the middle of the dang garden bed. If I wanted to shade some other summer vegetables I would have planted this vine on the outside edge and allow it to grow on an arch or lean-to trellis.
Chalk it up to ignorance but I should have researched the random seeds I got before I planted them. You will recall my original goal was just to stick some stuff in the ground with my kids and see something green come up. Well, I have gotten that in spades! I enjoy the puzzle that is my garden here in the southwest and I’m also a lazy gardener.
So, there they will stay.
My husband is laughing at me because I need to buy a trellis for my red Malabar spinach that popped up out of nowhere. But part of me stubbornly says, I want to see it through! We’ll see if it dies in the cooler weather – or if it goes on to do great things.
Let's Stay Holmes 