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Q. Last year, and again this year, my garden has hosted visiting poppies. They are tall annual plants with big, wavy, blue-green leaves and large flowers, both single and double, in a range of colours. Does this sort of poppy yield seeds that can be used in baking? If so, how do you know when to harvest the seeds?
A. The plants you describe are commonly called peony-flowered poppy or breadseed poppy. The botanical name is Papaver somniferum. The seeds are commonly used in baking.
The plants are prolifically self-sowing annuals, growing 60 to 90 cm tall, with leaves as you describe and big flowers with crinkly petals in a wide range of beautiful colours and bicolours. The blooms can be fully double, single, or semi-double.
The flowers eventually fade and the petals drop away to reveal a chubby, globe-shaped seed capsule topped by a cap-like structure.
The seed pods gradually fade to a light tan colour and, as the seeds ripen, little openings appear beneath the pods’ caps. At that point, I give the stems a gentle shake. When I can hear the seeds rattling loosely in the pods, and the pods are dry, I begin cutting the ripened seed pods from their stems and placing them in a paper bag, which I store in a cool, dark, dry closet until I have time to shake the seeds out of the pods for storage.
An alternative, if there is suitable storage room, is to leave the seeds in the pods and use them as needed like salt shakers to disperse the seeds over baking and in other cooking.
Emptied pods can be composted. Seeds remaining in the pods will provide more flowers
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Although August is the height of the summer, and it’s worthwhile taking time to stop and smell the roses, the vegetable gardener also has to be aware that autumn is just around the corner. That doesn’t have to be a depressing thought! It just means you need to harvest any crops that won’t survive the first frosts, and that you may want to preserve some so that you can have a homegrown taste of summer during the winter months. You should have some new crops on the way to look forward to, and be thinking about potting up herbs to bring under cover for the winter.
Header image: Three sisters (winter squash, maize and climbing beans) summer garden at the University of Guelph. (Hannah Tait Neufeld), Author provided
If October starts warm it can provide a nice breathing space, to catch up late harvesting, saving seeds and generally getting the garden ready for the winter. It’s also the time to cover any bare soil, with mulches if necessary, to protect your soil structure from bad weather, and to ensure any tall plants (mainly brassicas) are staked against ‘wind rock’, which can lift their roots out of the soil. You may also need to net brassicas to stop them being munched by marauding pigeons.
Join Emma the Space Gardener as she explores gardening on Earth… and beyond! There’s some great news for space gardeners this week, involving space to grow in, bricks to build with and… hibernating squirrels. And you can discover how many plants it would take to provide your own personal oxygen supply, and what would make a good houseplant in space. Oh, and there’s still time to enter the chilli seed giveaway!
Are you dreaming of an exotic garden full of flowers with hard to pronounce names that will awe your guests? An understandable dream. But most tropical green life are not meant to grow in the weather conditions that the UK offers.
Commonly known as the dumb cane, dieffenbachia is the perfect houseplant that can thrive on neglect! The large, variegated broad leaves with bright colors can spruce up any home decor! Apart from appearance, there are several other Dieffenbachia Benefits discussed below!