Photo by Rick Gush
I ’ve correct aside room in my garden for Italy ’s violent poppies .
Ah , June is almost here and it looks like we ’re finally going to have a pretty spectacular show of red poppies in the garden this year .
These poppies , Papaver rhoea , are well the most beautiful weed here in Italy . When I take the railroad train from the sea-coast into Milan on the key plain , I see a whole bunch of fields of grain that are infested with this weed , to the point that the fields can sometimes await completely red . The wagon train path are also frequently cover with these poppy , and I assay to take a representative photo last workweek while I was on the train , but all I got were a caboodle of mass of blurry red , so you ’ll have to take my word for it — these weeds are jolly striking .
really , these red poppies grow savage all over the Mediterranean and up into many parts of southerly Europe . BTW , they are not the famed Afghan poppy from which diacetylmorphine is made . Those plant are much taller , the seed heads are much turgid , the efflorescence are larger and often double - petaled , and the heyday color is much paler than the red poppy .
Icollected some seed headsa few summer ago , and after a few false outset I do think I have finally figure out how to propagate these crimson beauties . Of course , they are a pesky smoke , even in my garden , and I ’ve had to cut away some big swathe in order of magnitude to be able to plant my tomatoes and squashes . In oecumenical , my plan is to launch the poppy as ego - seed indigen along the south border of the garden , but root them out wherever they occupy quad that we require to cultivate .
I’ve set aside room in my garden for Italy’s red poppies.
Aside from being beautiful , the poppy do have a useful side , because their seed can be reap and used as poppy germ for baked goods . I thought harvest and cleaning the tiny little seeds was going to be a pain , but it turn out to be clean easy . I just poked a bunch of speck cakehole in the metal lid of a spyglass jounce and then sate the jar with a bunch of the crushed source head . When I shook the jarful , the little poppy seeds fall out through the tiny holes , almost as if I had been harvesting poppy seeds all my life . Ha ! I deal to collect a baby - intellectual nourishment jar full of dead clean seed in less than 15 minutes !
What is this flora ? You tell me !
So , today we ’ll have a little contest here on the blog :
The photo to the right hand is of a self-generated plant that appear every year in my office garden . It ’s a beautiful yellow plant that kind of looks like a frilly asparagus shoot . The yellow shoot come up in late May and then shrivel and go away within a calendar week or two . I ’ve also catch a few other less gimcrack color mutant in other gardens .
So , what is this flora ? I actually managed to await it up a few year ago , but I ’ve misplace that information , so I ’m hoping one of you reader might be interested in doing the research this sentence . If anybody does find out what this plant life is , I ’ll be beaming to institutionalise them a package of seeds , either red poppy semen or any other Italian veggie seed that might matter to them .
( observe : If you like to vie for a prize , please include your Es - mail name and address in the indicated theater of operations when submitting your scuttlebutt . The Urban Farm Online editor will touch you directly for information on where to send your prize . Please do not include personal contact information in your comment . )
translate more of Digging Italy »
