Tom Bri comments on TB’s guest post Planting Seeds the Easy Way:

“I have stopped ‘planting’ squash, pumpkins, tomatoes, sunflowers, vine beans, lettuce, arugula, radishes and some others. I had some luck this year with muskmelons and watermelons coming back. Tobacco kind of works in my region, but our growing season is a bit too short in the northern Midwest, so not guaranteed to reseed.

I still plant corn, upright beans, carrots, beets as these don’t seed easily in one season.

My technique to to allow some of the plants to mature, and then to trample or scatter the seeds about the surface of the garden in the Fall. Rotten tomatoes, watermelon, cucumbers etc I just squash underfoot and kick around. Then in the spring till the ground. I plant whatever I plan to in rows, and as I am weeding I watch carefully and leave alone anything that looks like a veggie sprout.

This year I left one garden fallow, and scattered wildflower seeds all over the surface. In spite of planting nothing, I am getting lots of tomatoes, sage, pumpkins, a few potatoes, lettuce, arugula and whatever. The only drawback is weeding is a bit particular, since you have to know your sprouts, and nothing is in rows. Plus, my wife is a neatness freak, and this type of gardening drives her nuts. She likes rows.”

It is an interesting idea to just see what grows, if a little nerve-wracking for those of us who prefer order and straight lines. My best pumpkin vines always seem to grow out of the compost pile, and self-seeded tomatoes are often happier those I plant on purpose.