One of the things I cant leave behind are my 'Holbrook Poppies' so I am collecting seed. My Holbrook Poppies come from seeds I found and sampled one year in late October. We were driving from Sydney to Wangarratta to go to the Jazz Festival and stopped off at - you guessed it - Holbrook, NSW for a stretch and a coffee. In the front yard of a beautiful old and deserted house were the seed heads of these poppies. I sampled a couple of heads, kept the seeds and sprinkled them thru my veggie patch.The next spring the little rosettes of grey green leaves emerged and yielded large numbers of beautiful purple-mauve papery flowers.
They self-seed each year and, each year I am rewarded with a beautiful display of flowers and pollinating bees drawn to my patch. They also fill gaps in the patch while the new spring vegetables grow. To me, spring isn't spring without these poppies.
Yesterday I went thru the patch to see if the heads were dry enough to collect for seeds - they were. Yay - they WILL come with me.
The flowers are a little small now - they always get small towards the end of their season. Normally they are much bigger than those seen here. It's fun to watch the bees crawl inside and run around the centre of the flower pollinating as they go.
If you'd like some of my Holbrook Poppy seeds, tell me what your favourite flowers are for the vegetable patch. Are they marigolds, sunflowers, or something else? Why do you like to have them in your veggie patch? As one who likes flowers in with my veggies, I'd love to know what you grow.
I can give three little packets away. These will go to people randomly - a name-in-the-hat draw that I will make on Monday 12th November. There might be some restrictions with WA and Tas gardeners, I don't know - the seed catalogues always seem to point out 'issues'. I will do some research.
In some ways, I will be taking these poppies 'home' - Holbrook is not that far from our new rural property.
I am looking forward to hearing about your favourite flowers for your vegetable patch!
We grow Giant sunflowers in and around our Veg patch to help attract bees and aid pollination. They are also fun for the kids to carve faces in. Nasturtiums are good to grow too they are pretty , edible and have natural insecticidal properties.
ReplyDeleteThanks Kate, sunflowers are one of my favourites too, but I try to grow ones that are not too tall. I also like the bronzey tones. I like the shade that they provide to the more vulnerable things too like the lettuce and the cucumber. I should grow nasturtiums again, I love their bright flowers.
DeleteYes sunflowers, this year I have planted lots of queen Anne's lace amongst the veggies for the bees, there are also pansies, petunias, violas, and borage just to name a few. I like how thet bring colour and bees and hope they might help confuse the pests. I also let most of my veggies go to seed so get to enjoy their flowers too. Love your Holbrook poppy
ReplyDeleteHi Kirsty - like the idea of confusing pests! I am a big viola and pansie fan - love their little faces. And while I dont currently grow borage, I love the cucumber smell of their leaves. I will take a look at Queen Anne's lace - I am not familiar with it and it sounds like it must be pretty.
ReplyDeleteI really love growing cosmos in any gaps, I like the simlicity of the flowers and the feathery foliage. Otherwise it has to be nasturtiums and sunflowers although I have quite a few Californian poppies, lobellia and scaevola in the beds near my edibles.
ReplyDeleteCosmos, another one I am unfamiliar with, must look it up.
DeleteSuch a beautiful colour! I love having nigella, nasturtiums and cornflowers self seeding around the garden, though this is in the ornamental/veg garden and not the designated raised bed area. This year I'm also trying to get borage and chamomile to join in and become part of the garden. I also love honesty but mostly because of the sculpural dried seed heads, not so much the flowers. I've tried sunflowers a couple of times, but I've never succeeded.
ReplyDeleteLove cornflowers but never grown them, they are such a beautiful blue!
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