Poppy dust
16 June 2021 12:36 amI harvested the first of the red poppy heads, as their windows had opened... and I'm not convinced there was any seed inside at all :-(
I didn't get any viable seed last year -- this crop was grown on the remaining seed from 2019, although as we know from Flanders Fields poppy seed can remain viable for years in the ground, and emerge when the soil is turned over -- but this year at least the plants grew reasonably tall and vigorous. The actual seed-heads are nothing like as big as the original ones I harvested from the wayside, though, and all I managed to shake out of them was black dust. I know poppy seed *does* look like dust, but not quite so much as that...
I'm still finding caterpillars all over the place. Bigger and bigger ones, of course, as they get older and have eaten more :-(
I still have no idea where they're coming from -- normally I'd expect them to have focused on a single food plant, but these ones are turning up on everything from poppy heads to holly leaves!
I didn't get any viable seed last year -- this crop was grown on the remaining seed from 2019, although as we know from Flanders Fields poppy seed can remain viable for years in the ground, and emerge when the soil is turned over -- but this year at least the plants grew reasonably tall and vigorous. The actual seed-heads are nothing like as big as the original ones I harvested from the wayside, though, and all I managed to shake out of them was black dust. I know poppy seed *does* look like dust, but not quite so much as that...
I'm still finding caterpillars all over the place. Bigger and bigger ones, of course, as they get older and have eaten more :-(
I still have no idea where they're coming from -- normally I'd expect them to have focused on a single food plant, but these ones are turning up on everything from poppy heads to holly leaves!