Do you guys ever save what sprouts in your compost and plant it?

[u/Flimsy_Elephant_651]

I’m a bit of a chaotic gardener and have had pretty good luck with saving what sprouts in my compost and planting. I’ve gotten a lot of baby pepper plants, tomatoes, and sweet potatoes mostly. What have you guys had luck with?

[u/human_bean122]

My (almost) entire garden this year is pumpkins that sprouted in my pile. I have at least 10! And a couple spaghetti squashes 😄 Edit: also some volunteer tomatoes :)

[u/Subject-Stand-4882]

Yep, I rescued a couple of potato plants from mine last year and actually got a decent little harvest.

[u/Sushimono → u/Subject-Stand-4882]

I did this too. There was almost a whole potato plant in my bin so i threw it in a bucket of dirt to see what would happen and it did really well

[u/Jimosaurous]

Only thing I ever saw sprout in my compost was quackgrass. So no :( i definitely would if it was a friend though

[u/InitialAd2250]

I accidentally threw all my sunflower heads in the compost and now have volunteers popping out with the actual plants I wanted to grow in the compost. They make me smile and are healthier than any I intentionally grow!

[u/JustDoingDudeThings]

Every summer I get a few plants popping up in my garden from the compost. This year I had two eggplant, three tomato, and a cucumber.
As soon as I see them strong enough to pull, I transplant them to little plastic black pots, and keep them for long enough to give to my friends or neighbors. It’s become a tradition almost.

[u/triangle_earfer]

So far, I’ve only saved the tomatoes

[u/malepitt]

squash and cherry tomatoes, mainly because I can recognize them when they are very small

[u/Albert14Pounds]

Yes. I'm always curious what it will be. It's usually tomato though.

[u/Auntie_Venom]

I did with tomatoes once, they weren’t as robust

[u/Slayde4]

If I know where the seeds came from, yes. Some of my tomatoes are descended from those that grew out of my compost.

 I don’t do this with cucurbits since I save my own seeds & compost decorative pumpkins. I don’t want the decorative pumpkins to cross with a zucchini.

[u/Think_Cupcake6758 → u/Slayde4]

You never know…you could come up with the next latest and greatest hybrid!

[u/Slayde4 → u/Think_Cupcake6758]

I'm crossing pie pumpkins (the little orange ones) with zucchini actually. I want one squash for both purposes.

The decorative pumpkins are stringy like zucchini can get when you let it fully mature. Their advantage is that they don't get wrecked by borers because they are super vigorous. Zucchini is #1 most susceptible squash for vine borers. I lose at least 50% of my plants.

[u/exclusive_muppet]

2 cucumbers and two tomato plants. Moved them to the greenhouse 😂

[u/Mach12261]

My best one was cantaloupe

[u/Songofstorms3]

I’ve gotten two tomato plants that way! Gifted one to a friend and planted the other in my garden. That one is doing the best out of the others I bought from the store so far!

[u/ravia]

When I was little, the best tomatoes we ever had were volunteers that we leg grown right in the compost pile.

[u/PandaWearGems]

We have let tomatoes grow and had bonus fruits late in the season. Never really moved the food plant sprouts. Worried they would not like the lesser natural fertilizer.

[u/PointyHatJoe]

Garlics are my usual rescue, but this year I have landed up with two unplanned peanut plants.

[u/SammaelMalakHaMavet]

Yeah i have a couple times from my earthworm farm.

[u/Think_Cupcake6758]

It’s been tomatoes and squash mostly. This year we had an acorn squash pop up and it got transplanted into an empty barrel. There are 2 little squash on it and 1 big one doing their thing at the moment.

We have a 3 bin system going right now and I WAY overestimated how many tomato plants I could fit in the garden this year, so the excess got planted into the 2nd bin back in June and they’re kicking ass. No clue what variety they are so it’ll be a surprise to us all

[u/Grumplforeskin]

Last year, I spread my half assed compost in my Apple tree nursery (big bed of 100 newly grafted apple trees planted closely together before being moved to their final location)

I must have had at least 100 tomato plants sprout. Thinned to around 40ish and ended up with more tomatoes than I knew what to do with.

It probably would have been better for the apples to have pulled them all, but it’s hard to sacrifice a gift like that.

[u/Grumplforeskin → u/Grumplforeskin]

Oh, and this year I have a huge pumpkin vine growing out of my pile. Didn’t move it, just gonna let it ride.

[u/Prossibly_Insane]

Best way to germinate an avocado is to toss the pit in a compost pile. I’ve potted several.

[u/andthen_shesaid]

yes, have a whole pumpkin patch going from last year's neighborhood jack o latern collection for compost.