In my third garden bed where I planted lettuce, basil and tomatoes, the tiny plants that have sprouted look suspiciously like marigolds, pak choy and sunflowers.

I first planted pak choy years ago, my first year gardening, and it did really well. We had a lot of stir fries that year. The pak choy blossomed and went to seed and I saved seeds but I needn’t have bothered – it’s self seeded every year since. It grows in the old compost heap, the lawn, the dirt pile and the garden. I’ve heard that a lot of people have success growing zucchini – I’ve never had success with zucchini, but I have a lot of pak choy. I don’t even think it’s the season for it, yet up it pops yet again. I still have all the seed I saved the first year, and I save seed each time it goes to seed again.

So I decided to pull out all my old seeds and see if any would sprout – I added in corn, zucchini and some eggplant. Some carrots seeds were tucked down the side a few weeks ago but there’s no sign of them yet.

After I added in the random seeds, some more popped up – I think my tomatoes finally decided to emerge. I planted Moneymaker, but given my liking for dropping fruit and seeds on the garden so it can self seed later on, it may not be Moneymaker at all. This garden bed may turn out a bit random but at least with all the self seeding happening, I’m growing strong plants.