Friday 24 June 2011

My Poppy Jungle

This year hubby planted up part of our veg patch with radishes, onions and carrots.  He put in some stakes and planted out the beans that had sprouted from his little seed tray. The first lot of radishes are over. We couldn't eat them quickly enough and some got too big and soft and had to be pulled out and put into the compost bin. Rather than plant another row, he's just thrown another handful of seeds into their area and they are starting to show green shoots now.

Meanwhile, we've had an invasion in the onion patch beside all that. A whole jungle of poppies have seeded themselves and completely overwhelmed the two rows of green onion spikes bravely climbing skywards.  we're not sure how they got there, unless the seeds were in the topsoil we bought when we created the garden two years ago. Apparently poppy seeds can lie dormant underground until you turn the soil and the light gets to them.

When we saw the first of the plants poking through, hubby wanted to pull them out, but I love poppies and said I wanted to see how they came out. Over the weeks more and more came up and turned into the little jungle you see in the picture.  And at last they have started to bloom with these delicate pink flowers.


A friend told me to wait till they'd flowered then lift the plants and move them somewhere more appropriate, so I'll do that if I can find the time; life's still a bit hectic at the moment. And then we'll wait to see how the onions do.  The carrots look to be doing well, and we've already had some meals with the rhubarb that overwintered under an upturned flowerpot.  We also should get some potatoes, as some plants came up from the few we left in the ground last year without realising it.

2 comments:

Sharkbytes (TM) said...

I sure wish I could get them to grow in my garden.

Linda D said...

Free flowers are always the best!

Writing Tip



________________
Add this to your site