Encouraging volunteer or wild plants - PEP BB gardening.straw.volunteerplants

Could someone please help clarify the distinction between wild plants and volunteer plants? I just moved into my property last fall. I have a great patch that I’m allowing to grow as a tree nursery of things that came up on their own. This patch has strawberries (wild or previously planted I don’t know), mint (I assume planted, now well spread), maple and aspen, and a few others I haven’t identified yet. Do I need to plant something there and allow them to volunteer next year?

There's a link above about "Volunteers vs Weeds" that has a bit more context.  I read it as a volunteer is a deliberately planted plant that has reseeded or seeds from cooking found their way back into the garden from compost.  A wild plant is something that came from elsewhere and didn't have an origin in a seed packet (or the like).  

So I'm not sure the strawberries or mint are volunteers or just established perennials...  Maple and aspen would be wild plants.

I think getting volunteers to happen is easier once you're doing Ruth Stout composting and growing veggies/fruit on purpose, the volunteers just start happening.

Would it be easier to understand if it said "domesticated volunteers" and "wild type plants"?

Also are volunteers only those from seed? or do spread tubers and roots outside of original planting area count as volunteers?

Good questions!  I'm not sure.  I'll try to ask Paul some time and see if he can weigh in...

Amy Arnett wrote:Would it be easier to understand if it said "domesticated volunteers" and "wild type plants"?

Also are volunteers only those from seed? or do spread tubers and roots outside of original planting area count as volunteers?

Yes. I think this is clearer. To me a volunteer is anything that comes up that I didn’t put there, which would include wild plants. I think wild and domestic is a clearer distinction. I think I’ll chop and drop the weeds in that area and put in some squash and ground cherries, both of which will bring me volunteers next year. Thanks!

We updated the requirements in the top post.  If you can think of any obvious loop holes that we should plug, let us know.

Here's my submission.  First pic is of a banana with a volunteer butternut squash (black arrow), tomato (yellow arrow) and pepper (blue arrow) growing out of the compost near the banana's base.  Also in the polyculture is a wood sorrel (red arrow) which is a green for food.  I couldn't get all 5 into one picture (so close!).  The second pic is of a bed of garlic with wild amaranth (orange arrow), dill (yellow arrow) and red orach (pink arrow).  The amaranth is the wild one (at least I didn't plant it ever).

I encourage/select for these plants by not chopping and dropping them.  The amaranth is starting to take over which might become a problem.  Wood sorrel is pretty gentle so I don't mind it popping up in places.  I also mulched the area around the banana before I knew the volunteers would arrive but it worked out in their favor.

Can I take pictures of wild plants that I'm attempting to cultivate for seed collection? There are a couple "weeds" in my yard that I'm planning to replant/re-seed for future use in my garden. (Horseweed, medicinal value. Milkweed, pollinator plant. "Sensitive" plant Mimosa pudica, nitrogen fixer)
Do they still count if I relocate them to a spot where they can grow with other plants or do they need to be in their "as found" locations? Mine are spread all over my yard currently, with little flags and bits of wire cage around them to protect them from bunnies and over-zealous husbands with lawn mowers...

I think for this badge they need to have naturally shown up in their spot and that spot needs to be in a polyculture type situation.  So I think a wild plant in a traditional grass lawn probably doesn't count.  I think two wild plants that show up in a flower bed (assuming a polyculture of many flower varieties) would count.  I think wild plants that show up in a diverse "weedy" lawn that isn't mostly grass might count as a polyculture but I'm not sure.

First picture is my raspberry hugel bed. From left to right I got the following plants:
Cleomi (volunteer, for pollinators)
Green Bean (nitrogen fixer)
Mexican sunflower (for pollinators)
Self-heal (wild)
Ornamental sweet potatoes (for biomass)
Red clover (volunteer, N fixer, pollinators)
Raspberry
Penstemon digitalis (wild, early bloomer for bees)

I get N-fixer growing to improve soil, also potato vines for chop-n-drop.

2nd picture is part of my garden bed for luffa, birdhouse gourd and pumpkin. From front to back, I got:
Balsam (volunteer, attract pollinators )
Pumpkin
Buckwheat (volunteer, attract pollinators (
Tomato
Luffa (attract pollinators, including hummingbird)
Birdhouse gourd (night blooming, attract pollinators)

I tucked in a brush pile underneath the gourd trellis for various critters, and a compost pile on site to improve soil.

Beautiful May!   Could you answer the second requirement for the BB?

 - A brief description on how you encouraged the volunteers and selected the wild plants (ie mulch, selective chop and drop)  

Yes, I put some compost and apply compost tea in spring time to give the beds a head start. Then I just let things grow wild on their own. If I see bare soil I will chop and drop some grass, usually the ones growing along the edges. In this way I make the beds look neater and prevent the soil from drying out.

I have more polyculture beds but never see the plants from this angle (volunteer/wild/planned).

Mike Haasl wrote:I think for this badge they need to have naturally shown up in their spot and that spot needs to be in a polyculture type situation.  So I think a wild plant in a traditional grass lawn probably doesn't count.  I think two wild plants that show up in a flower bed (assuming a polyculture of many flower varieties) would count.  I think wild plants that show up in a diverse "weedy" lawn that isn't mostly grass might count as a polyculture but I'm not sure.

Ok that makes sense. I’m going to let the “weedy” plants that I’m currently protecting grow to seed as planned, collect some and let the others fall wherever they want! It might take a little longer but they’ll eventually travel around the yard and end up in places where they can grow nicely together

The section of my garden pictured below is mostly volunteer and wild at this point in the year.

In these spring I had planted potatoes using compost, and from the compost sprung many squash (probably acorn-type) and one sweet potato.  I thinned out there squash seedlings, keeping those that were best placed.

I also have a volunteer coneflower, probably seed from a plant in another part of the yard.

This time of year there's purslane everywhere,  though not so much in this pic since I used a bunch the day before.  I try to harvest just by pinching off "branches" so it keeps gety ij mg more leaves.

Also lots of lamb's quarters.  If it's in the way, I pull it up young, otherwise I just harvest there top and let it regenerate. I always leave just a few to go to seed.

I'd like to share the pictures of my polyculture garden. I grew garlic, dill, mustard greens and sweet peas in spring and they have all been harvested. Now cherry tomato, yard long beans, cucumber and sweet potato are growing.

Picture 1
In the middle is a volunteer peach tree that came out of the compost and I am keeping the tree. It grew very healthy and quickly, reaching 5 ft in just 3 months. I tried to make its roots growing deeper by limiting irrigation and fertilization. The whole bed is not watered unless there's severe drought. The peach tree has no pest issue so far.

2nd kind of volunteer plants are balsams that reseeded from previous year. The flowers are not only pretty but also attract lots of pollinators.

3rd volunteer plants are buckwheats. I planted some for green manure early, chop-n-drop them as mulch. Some mature seeds readily germinated and popping up everywhere.

Various wild plants also show up in the bed and I select some to keep, such as wood sorrel, plantain and red clover.

Last picture showed the garden soil is mulched with corn stalks, husk and sunflower heads to maintain moisture and increase on in soil.

I love letting things come back naturally from seed. For years now I’ve had lettuce, miners lettuce, cilantro, and dill come back easily. Lazy gardening at its finest!! I just like to leave the plants in place; flower stalk and all. After it warms up in spring and any overwintering bugs have awoken; I break up the stalks and leave on the bed. I also chop and drop anything unwanted and leave what I do want to grow.

First picture has reseeded cilantro, chamomile, miners lettuce, and some just emerging dill. I also let grow the wild plantain(medicine), chickweed(food, chicken feed), and clover (nitrogen fixation).

Second picture is across from the first picture and this bed is full of reseeded lettuce (three kinds that originated from tango leaf, black seeded Simpson, and bronze mignonette but haven’t seemed to cross and stay true to type), cilantro, miners lettuce, and dill (tiny seedlings). I also encourage the plantain, clover, and chickweed here as well.

How to Certify That Your BB is Completed

- A picture and identification of the 3 species of volunteers and 2 species of selected wild plants
- A brief description on how you encouraged the volunteers and selected the wild plants (ie mulch, selective chop and drop)
- A brief description of the permaculture use of the plant if it isn't obvious


Here are a few pix of my volunteer "foodie" plants: collards, yellow pear tomatoes, and an unknown squash.

There are also two pix of my volunteer "wild" plants: clover, blackberry, and narrow-leaf plantain.

The "food" plants were allowed to grow simply because I'm too lazy to make my compost hot enough to kill seeds. LOL

The "wild" plants are allowed to grow however they want in my yard until I believe I have enough to harvest without hurting their populations. They are all considered weeds in my area and grow almost intrusively. I harvest the clover for chicken treats, the blackberries for food, and the plantain as medicine.

Self seeded / Volunteer Plants
Broccoli
Nasturtian
Borage
Parsley

Wild Plants
Dandelion
Acacia Tree

Description - encouraged volunteers
Did not pull them out!!! (when they started to grow)
If they are really not suitable where they have sprouted, and I need/want to keep it, I would look to relocate in the area that is most suitable.

The wild plants just grew from being dropped by seed originally via birds or the wind no doubt.
And I have just left them both to do their thing.
The tree I will pot if it is not growing in an appropriate area.


Permie Use
Brocoli - food, and if let to go afterwards then the flowers are pollinated attractive.

The parsley is - greens for my meals, raw snack in the garden, and cutNdrop when there is abundant plants, otherwise if they naturally come to the end of their life, the stalk is chopped and put on the path of the garden, with all my small woody/sticks are, as home broken mulch.

The Nasturtian - living mulch, and good for soil, and cut and drop when it gets late in the season or when it has served the purpose and its time to plant out, e.g. have to clear it away.  Leaves and flowers for food, And serves the bees, and other wild critters.

Borage - the flowers are pollinator attractive, flowers in smoothies - antidepressant characteristics. Tall ground cover.

Dandelion - leaves - greens for cooking or salad, or smoothies with flower buds. I have not ventured into harvesting the roots for tea, etc, but one day I shall. Sometimes when I just have got so many I start culling by harvesting the leaves and dropping them on pot plants or around the base of other plants for food.


Acacia - nurse tree - small bird friendly as the branches are closer so easy to bounce around inside the canopy in protection from larger birds or prey. Cut to release nitrogen to feed surrounding plants, etc, and use the small - mediums branches for the garden floor e.g. chop as mulch.

Lots of wild and volunteer plants around this yard this year!

There is some purslane growing, which until recently I thought was a terrible weed - nonsense! - I'll likely use some in a salad tonight with some Lamb's Quarters (goosefoot, chenopodium). I also found a small cedar tree growing, and trees are useful for all sorts of things including sucking some of that CO2 back down into the soil. In our front yard, there are lots of sunflowers growing and milkweed. The sunflowers I imagine are volunteers from our neighbors, who plant their whole sidewalk area with sunflowers each year. I've been waiting for some to grow on our side! The milkweed popped up from plants last year, and we even saw some monarch caterpillars feasting on some earlier this summer.

Volunteer - Sunflowers, Milkweed
Wild - Purslane, Cedar tree, Lamb's Quarters

My 'technique' was just to let them grow, and clear a bit of space around them when they were small to ensure adequate sunlight.

I have a red leaf lettuce volunteer in the middle of my trailer parking pad.

- A picture and identification of the 3 species of volunteers and 2 species of selected wild plants
- A brief description on how you encouraged the volunteers and selected the wild plants (ie mulch, selective chop and drop)
- A brief description of the permaculture use of the plant if it isn't obvious

This polyculture bed is planted with:    raspberry, pecan tree, serviceberry, garlic chives.

In addition to the cultivated plants in this bed:

3 VOLUNTEER species that have found their way into this bed through home compost and recycled seed starting mix added to the compost bin

Asparagus,  Chervil, Dill

2 WILD SPECIES that have been allowed to "live" and reseed in this bed by carefully weeding around them and harvesting them without pulling them:

Lamb's Quarter (delicious spinach type green that is more reliable and has a longer season)   and
Purslane (grows wild throughout my yard, allowed to live and grow in many beds including this one,  makes a delicious pickled sandwich topper as well as stir fry addition)

Aurora House wrote:I have a red leaf lettuce volunteer in the middle of my trailer parking pad.

Here I'm saving its seed- pollen probably from wild lettuce go promiscuis pollination!
And also some pictures of native evergreen huckleberry & sala. The encouragement is clipping off sickly & diseased branches to burn and we removed several trees last January so they have all about doubled in size with the greater sunlight. The native Americans of the PNW ate the berries as well as other uses of these plants.
In the seeds saving thread I have a picture of a basket of Acorns. A squirrel (invasive grey 🤬) stole at least one and planted it in my grow a tuber container. When I dumped the container to harvest the potatoes (& onions) I discovered it. It will not survive in a 10 gallon pot, so I am planting it in a 1 gallon pot and putting it with the other plants I'm overwintering in my sun room until I'm sure all frost has passed and can get it in the ground in a spot it can grow as big as it wants.

The main meathod of propagation here is just places that are a pain to mow. I'm fairly certain the edler berry, poke berry and choke cherry are bird started.

- A picture and identification of the 3 species of volunteers and 2 species of selected wild plants
- A brief description on how you encouraged the volunteers and selected the wild plants (ie mulch, selective chop and drop)
- A brief description of the permaculture use of the plant if it isn't obvious


I encouraged the volunteers by letting everything go to seed as it liked. The wild plants were selected and encouraged by letting the edges go wild, mulching with grass that contains wild flower seeds, and having a bird friendly garden which hopefully brings in some new seeds.

Eight years ago I started this garden bed between my two apple trees. (You can see more pictures of it here). Some years I've maintained it better than others, but I usually let anything that's edible self-seed, be they wild or domestic.

To encourage my volunteer wild and domestic plants, I let them self seed, weed out things that aren't edible (like buttercup) and mulch with poultry bedding. I also burry compost in the garden. I let my kids take the seed heads from kale and run around shaking the seeds everywhere, too.

Domestic things that have reseeded/volunteered in it:

Sweet Cicely
Russian Red Kale
Onion (I buried compost Ruth Stout-style in the garden, and it popped up)

Wild things that have seeded themselves in it:

Dandelion
Goldenrod (good for dying yellows!)
Bittercress
Nipplewort
Siberian miner's lettuce
trefoil

(I also planted shallots and Chinese artichokes in here, and they are happily multiplying on their own. But I'm not sure if they fall under the same category as rhizome plants like strawberries)

Volunteers in my garden.

I don't do anything in particular to encourage any of them, other than let them grow once they appear.

Here’s my submission:
The weather here has been crazy so the Anna apple tree in this guild doesn’t look too happy at the moment. Please overlook. The rest is kind of a mishmash but from right to left are  the following: oregano, lemon balm, scabiosa, fleabane, oxalis ( looks kind of beaten up but there it is, and sunflower.

The volunteer and wild plants often enter our yard through our wildlife friends , but additionally we don’t remove spent plants until spring so as to allow pollinators much needed habitat and birds every opportunity to eat the seed pods. Additionally when we plant bare root trees we often mulch with oregano , lemon balm, and lavender cuttings which often have seed heads. My daughter also has two beautiful superpowers. 1. She is an Aspie which means that she is incredibly focused on and committed to detail. 2. She loves, advocates and researches for every new plant or insect she finds in the yard. These awesome traits contribute to longevity for plants that I, often might unknowingly yank out. .


Volunteers- Scabiosa is a beautiful edible/ medicinal herb that attracts pollinators.
                    Oregano and lemon balm are edible, medicinal pollinator attracting herbs as
                     well.
                     Sunflowers are edible and great for wildlife as well as good for cleaning up the
                      soil.
Wild plants- Fleabane is medicinal and I kind of like the taste of it.
                     Oxalis is an edible herb.

My submission -

- A picture and identification of the 3 species of volunteers and 2 species of selected wild plants
- A brief description on how you encouraged the volunteers and selected the wild plants (ie mulch, selective chop and drop)
- A brief description of the permaculture use of the plant if it isn't obvious

My 3 chosen volunteers are sunflower (pollinator bait, animal feed, shade/support for the other plants), radish (pollinator bait, animal feed), and passion vine (used as a supplement and caterpillar food for a butterfly that only eats passion vine leaves). My wild plants are lamb's quarter (people & animal food, shade for other plants, contros erosion while warm-weather crops are sprouting) and wild garlic (people food, animal supplement, rodent repellent).

I encourage volunteers by letting things go to seed before using it as mulch/compost and allowing seeds in the kitchen compost.Or just let decorative pumpkins rot in place then find babies in odd places. The passion vine spread underground from another area because the ground is protected and I guess comfy enough for roots to move through. For the wilds, I work to identify "weeds" that I like and let those go to seed while selecting out ones I haven't a use for. And any plant I like that is in a no-plant zone gets rehomed to a safe place.

Submission post:
I have a peach tree that volunteered probably 3 or 4 years ago from a compost pile I moved.  We didn't know what it was until this spring when it developed peach leaf curl with my intentionally-planted peach (west coast has been WET) So now I am helping it by cutting weeds and letting it grow.  It will want full sun, so next year I plan to reroute my chickens around it for pest control and clean-up.  

I have a second volunteer in chamomile. I don't know who planted the original, but it's been allowed to take over a plot on the north end of my property together with Dandelion (Wild #1).  I started by 1) dropping mulch in this area and 2) removing an invasive shrub that was over-shading and not providing any benefit.  I will harvest the chamomile flowers in a few weeks when they show their heads, for making teas for myself and my family.  Dandelions we eat greens, make Dandelion jelly which we have discovered goes amazingly well with chamomile tea!  I have to pull things like Thistle and cats ear out of this area - my neighbor thinks I'm nuts/lazy for letting "all the weeds  grow" but she doesn't realize I actively weed this area, just selectively.

Third - my raised bed that stays well shaded, I let sorrel (volunteer) and nipplewort (wild) grow until they reseed, as they are both cold weather plants, and I'll put some lettuce in here. They keep the other weeds (bind weed, cleaver, grass, buttercup) at bay long enough to keep the soil in place and I just plant lettuce in the spaces.  I will pull some of the nipple wort thus year because it has become SO abundant!  We eat nipple wort in our lentils and omlettes. . . . My husband and kids don't realize it isn't spinach.

pretty sure this fits the bill. This garden is pretty rank at this late point in the season. There are various peppers and eggplant planted here, peppers are visible on the left of the first picture. Some alliums were pulled earlier this summer from the foreground area. This part of the farm is the highest and driest so everything here gets geared toward strongly taprooted plants. Hopefully it's not too hard to see but volunteer crops visible are holy basil, papalo, large amounts of melokhiya, and ceylon spinach  (talinum). Talinum is like an overgrown version of it's cousin, purslane, heat loving and drought resistant medicinal greens. All of those are allowed to make seed and get moved around a bit when the plants are chopped and dropped mostly during winter. The melokhiya will be mostly removed to the compost soon as what's there would be an overwhelming amount of seed and it's too large of a plant to need to be any more prolific than pictured here. It's a favorite summer green of mine in the mallow family and a close relative of jute. I have not explored it's fiber aspect much other than experimentally pulling off some bast fibers.
As far as desirable wild plants in the mix there is some lambsquarters mixed in the melokhiya, I chopped most out already but the second picture shows some seed heads maturing on what's left, as well as the melokhiya pods (like thin little okra). Also in here is several sow thistles being allowed to go to seed as I really enjoy the dark bitter flavor of the young plants. Likewise there is dandelion, which I generally pull all out in late winter each year so that I have first year roots each time which are as tender as carrots and maybe my favorite vegetable. I like bitters! On the other hand I don't care for the taste of either of the two catsear species we have here and I remove them before they can flower, though their seeds keep blowing in from the neighbors yard. Third pic shows a dandelion, sow thistle again. Also some purple dead nettle and henbit coming up, which along with chickweed and hopefully miner's lettuce (not endemic but we're trying to naturalize here) will keep this fertile plot green through the winter while neighboring lawns will mostly go brown. I'm sure there's some purslane in here somewhere and there appears to be a tomato sprout in the left of the last photo as well. I scattered evening primrose seed here years ago and a few plants show up each year though increasingly more over into the "lawn". Volunteers, whether introduced or wild come up and are allowed to grow if in a good spot and turned into mulch if they come up in the way. The main thing I'd label a problem weed in here at this point in time is the bermuda grass who is constantly invading from the edge and has to be torn up periodically before it digs in and spreads. Birds seed in blackberries which I will remove, forking out the roots if they've gotten too established to die from chopping. Last year this space was mostly tomatoes iirc, the year before that garlic. That's all the details I can think of at this moment.

This is my 1st attempt to post for a BB, so please let me know if I need to do anything different.   Hopefully this will qualify for supporting native plants BB.

1stly, I wood chipped the entire 1/4 acre I'm working on with approximately 30 loads of chips from tree trimming company (delivered free, spread by me).  That helped control the weeds enough that I could manually remove many non-native invasives like Johnson grass and baby's breath.   Most of the native perennials on the property managed to poke thru the chips, but in some areas I pulled the chips back so they can continue to grow.

Things that poked thru:  spiderwort, verbena, mexicanhat, wild petunia, Texas 4-oclock, fuzzy bluestem, stinging nettle.

Things that sprouted from seeds that came "with" the woodchips:  mountain laurel, mustang grape, hackberry, and soapberry.

Seeds I set under the woodchips that sprouted:  wild appricot, pomegranite

Trees that performed better in this year's dry season, wood chipped in:  Pecan, peach, pear, walnut

Perennials planted as small plants that survived their 1st dry season in part because of the wood chips:   Mealy Cup Blue Sage, Red Salvia, Coastal petunia, Lantana, Mexican Honeysuckle, Rock rose, coastal strawberry, thornless blackberry, and a cultivated thorned blackberry (some water needed for the berry plants)

Volunteer natives that benefited from "not" woodchipping or pulling wood chips back off the ground:  bluebonnets, goldenrod, verbena, buffalo grass

The 3 volunteer plants I fostered:
Swartzen berries,
Parsley,
Apricot.
I kept them chopped and dropped, added extra mulch, and watered them just like the crops they came up near.  
Swartzen berries, also known as garden huckleberries, are in the nightshade and produce a little black "berry" that tastes bland, like a tomatillo. That makes it great to use as a purple coloring agent in foods. My kids like purple fruit leather.
I do use parsley medicinally. It's an excellent diuretic and can positively influence gout and kidney/bladder infections. But I mostly use it to flavor chicken noodle soup.
I love apricots, and I gobble them when in season. I also freeze dry them and use them in my breakfasts all year long!

The 2 wild plants I nourished:
Salsify,
Burdock.
I didn't pull them out, but kept them, mulching and watering like the other plants near them.

I love to eat the flowers of salsify! They make a grwat crudite veggie to dip in guacamole or any other dip.
The burdock has a medicinal taproot. It's one of the few plants that is liver-restorative, not just a liver tonic.  It's also a wild edible, listed in the foraging bbs. I use it in a 4-root tea my kids and I like. I pickled some this year to use as GOBO in homeade sushi! :D

sorry, it's a jungle out there. I figured out how to add text and arrows, first time doing that. Went and took a couple more pictures with hopefully better light, and reduced their size less. Found an evening primrose and also a volunteer tatsoi too. Let me know if anything is still unclear or if I should take a close up of something specific.

Chris Clinton wrote:pretty sure this fits the bill. This garden is pretty rank at this late point in the season. There are various peppers and eggplant planted here, peppers are visible on the left of the first picture. Some alliums were pulled earlier this summer from the foreground area. This part of the farm is the highest and driest so everything here gets geared toward strongly taprooted plants. Hopefully it's not too hard to see but volunteer crops visible are holy basil, papalo, large amounts of melokhiya, and ceylon spinach  (talinum). Talinum is like an overgrown version of it's cousin, purslane, heat loving and drought resistant medicinal greens. All of those are allowed to make seed and get moved around a bit when the plants are chopped and dropped mostly during winter. The melokhiya will be mostly removed to the compost soon as what's there would be an overwhelming amount of seed and it's too large of a plant to need to be any more prolific than pictured here. It's a favorite summer green of mine in the mallow family and a close relative of jute. I have not explored it's fiber aspect much other than experimentally pulling off some bast fibers.
As far as desirable wild plants in the mix there is some lambsquarters mixed in the melokhiya, I chopped most out already but the second picture shows some seed heads maturing on what's left, as well as the melokhiya pods (like thin little okra). Also in here is several sow thistles being allowed to go to seed as I really enjoy the dark bitter flavor of the young plants. Likewise there is dandelion, which I generally pull all out in late winter each year so that I have first year roots each time which are as tender as carrots and maybe my favorite vegetable. I like bitters! On the other hand I don't care for the taste of either of the two catsear species we have here and I remove them before they can flower, though their seeds keep blowing in from the neighbors yard. Third pic shows a dandelion, sow thistle again. Also some purple dead nettle and henbit coming up, which along with chickweed and hopefully miner's lettuce (not endemic but we're trying to naturalize here) will keep this fertile plot green through the winter while neighboring lawns will mostly go brown. I'm sure there's some purslane in here somewhere and there appears to be a tomato sprout in the left of the last photo as well. I scattered evening primrose seed here years ago and a few plants show up each year though increasingly more over into the "lawn". Volunteers, whether introduced or wild come up and are allowed to grow if in a good spot and turned into mulch if they come up in the way. The main thing I'd label a problem weed in here at this point in time is the bermuda grass who is constantly invading from the edge and has to be torn up periodically before it digs in and spreads. Birds seed in blackberries which I will remove, forking out the roots if they've gotten too established to die from chopping. Last year this space was mostly tomatoes iirc, the year before that garlic. That's all the details I can think of at this moment.

I interpreted this "plants growing together," to mean growing with the plants I planted on purpose. So, staff, help me get this right now, you are saying it means that all 5 of the wild/volunteer plants have to be growing in the same space? It has nothing to do with their proximity to my growing spaces?

I believe the intent is that the 5 plants are growing in community with things you're deliberately growing.  So in a garden, food forest, edible landscape, etc.  I might be wrong but I'd approve a BB that was for those areas.

Thanks for feedback:  Here are more pictures from my garden, including pictures from last spring where you can see more stuff growing.

To describe some of the activities that I did to encourage the growth:  

1.  Garden bed prep begun in spring 2023:  Heaping topsoil into the beds, removing coastal Bermuda roots and runners, hugelkulturing the pathways, top dressing the planting beds with homemade compost

2.  Allowing unknown species to grow in the garden area until I could identify.

3.  Allowing my 2023 garden to fully mature and drop seeds

4.  Intentionally allowing wild edible and pollinator species to grow side by side with my garden species

5. Intentionally establishing several wild pollinator and edible species in my garden.

The 3 volunteer species that reseeded from my 2023 garden are:   Lambsquarter, Malabar Spinach, and Cilantro
The 2 feature wild plants are Gaura Wildflower and Wild Blackberry

There are a lot more plants in my garden -- I counted over 50 species and varieties last spring, but I will stick to the 5 required for the BB to keep it simple for now.

James Bradford wrote:
2.  Allowing unknown species to grow in the garden area until I could identify.

That's how I got the gaura / snow pea thing going.   The gaura was just an unidentified rosette in the row all winter long.   I planted the snow peas all over the garden and most of them got eaten by pests or trashed by high winds.   I tried to train them up sticks, but the wind kept stripping the vines off the sticks and back to the ground.  

But, by happy accident, the snow pea vines that intermingled with the gaura just swayed together in the wind.   The pea vines grew where they needed to get just the right amount of sunlight.   Those peas were delicious!  

James Bradford wrote:Thanks for feedback:  Here are more pictures from my garden, including pictures from last spring where you can see more stuff growing.

To describe some of the activities that I did to encourage the growth:  

1.  Garden bed prep begun in spring 2023:  Heaping topsoil into the beds, removing coastal Bermuda roots and runners, hugelkulturing the pathways, top dressing the planting beds with homemade compost

2.  Allowing unknown species to grow in the garden area until I could identify.

3.  Allowing my 2023 garden to fully mature and drop seeds

4.  Intentionally allowing wild edible and pollinator species to grow side by side with my garden species

5. Intentionally establishing several wild pollinator and edible species in my garden.

The 3 volunteer species that reseeded from my 2023 garden are:   Lambsquarter, Malabar Spinach, and Cilantro
The 2 feature wild plants are Gaura Wildflower and Wild Blackberry

There are a lot more plants in my garden -- I counted over 50 species and varieties last spring, but I will stick to the 5 required for the BB to keep it simple for now.

...clicking the "Submit for BB certification" button  ... please see pics and comments above

Steve Thorn wrote:To get certified for this BB, you will need to show 3 species of volunteer plants and 2 species of selected wild plants growing in polyculture(s) with cultivated plants, and a brief description of what you did to encourage the polyculture, like mulching or selective chop and drop.

How to Certify That Your BB is Completed

 - A picture and identification of the 3 species of volunteers and 2 species of selected wild plants with cultivated plants nearby
 - A brief description on how you encouraged the volunteers and selected the wild plants (ie mulch, selective chop and drop)
 - A brief description of the permaculture use of the plant if it isn't obvious

Clarifications for this BB

 - "Volunteer" (for the sake of this BB) means a domesticated plant that reseeded itself without human help.  Does not include missed harvest (potatoes) or plants that spread on their own by runner or rhizome like mint, strawberry, raspberry, etc.
 - "Wild plant" (for the sake of this BB) means a wild plant that reseeded itself without human help
 - Plants must have a practical permaculture use (food, fiber, medicine, spice, etc)
 - All 5 wild/volunteer plants don't need to be in the same polyculture

I was out walking the gardens today and noticed a lot of new growth this spring. I selectively chopped and dropped to encourage the plants I want to grow. I'm especially excited about the goji berries!! The plants are pretty small this early in the spring so I could add closeup photos if needed.

Volunteer plants:
1) Mint – food/spice
2) Comfrey - medicine
3) Feverfew - medicine
4) Motherwort - medicine
5) Yarrow - medicine

Wild plants:
1) Goji berry - food
2) Curly dock - food
3) Mullein - medicine
4) Salsify - food -- the salsify is growing right on top of the blackberry cane
5) Woods rose - tea
6) Common mallow - food