wild flowers in bloom

Preparing flower seed inventory

Welcome to my morning office

Planting by the moon cycles dictates this week be spent preparing the Annual beds.

Keeping good order of our seed is important.

Next year at the time of using my saved seeds life will be easy for me. 

Saved seed does not have the luxury of seed packages with all the data on them needful to replant in a beneficial way. On the inventory sheet is the information needed for success. NO need to do all the research again. It is all there.

When What Where Why

color

location

soil needs

 days to germination

spacing

thinning

height at thinning

full grown height

Companion planting if applicable.

Seed packets. Notes on heirloom or hybrid type

Each page is set in alphabetical order. Click to enlarge.

sweet peas up the trellis

These are just beginning only 2 weeks in. Bachelor buttons, Shasta daisy, forget-me-nots, sweet peas and lupines. There are also columbines. This is my blue/white bed. Now some nasturtiums vines that had reseeded are also joining them. They are a fire palate so they may get pulled.

Lupines. Remember to chill seeds of lupines for 7 days before planting

The ferns are loving the cooler days. Well under 100 here has been a treat.

My seeds now sorted into annuals, perennials and biennials.

I study some types on line and then add the printed information to the data page.

This is the week to plow and cultivate.

The iris have been removed and will go in after the the full moon. All bulbs, perennials, biannual and root crops will go in then. All flowering annuals, and ground crops with outside seed will go in between the 7th-14th. Ground crops with inside seed between the 14th and the 22 of October. The soils will be attained from the side yard once screened of rock. This bed will need to be dug with pick ax then screened as well. All semi shade will go toward the house the South of the bed. Taller iris to the left full sun. The flax to the background with annuals the shortest coming toward the foreground. The trailing flax will flow over edge. Now mind you that the hole is hoped to be filled up once this is broken up for drainage and root development.
Some parts will be left poorer soil for those flowers that prefer it. One side will be rich soil and so on.

Harvesting poppy's

This is the second year that the investment of $4 into poppy seed has multiplies into glory!

This is what I get to see when walking out my front door. This morning my kids wanted to go to the bus stop on their own (just 5 houses down) so I had to go harvest the poppy of course to keep my eye on them so I know they are safe on the school bus.

The poppy having exploded with bloom now have many many seed pods that have matured. It is essential to continuous blooming to harvest off the pods. Now they are called poppy for a few good reasons. When you remove the pods they literally POP off. When the pods dry they actually do pop to disperse the seed. The seed does really pop out of the pod. As the pod dries it curls and then bursts.

It was so peaceful sitting there an hour listening to the music of the bees as they enjoyed to blooms. They are so calm and I feel calm around them. I was thinking about how folks are so scared of them. They are so beautiful and duty compels them to task. They tend the pollination we so need to sustain life here. Folks just go indiscriminately killing off the living things. One day like the si-fi movies , I wonder if they will just kill it all off.  No fresh harvests of fruits or vegetables no tree nuts or vines fruited. No olive trees for oil. May it never be in my grand children's life time. Fear God lest it might be in our own.
They sang to me working right along side of me. We worked peacefully together. No FEAR. Life is like that the fear all around us, waiting to see how we might respond to it...respect or destruction. Living with fear as a mentor. You see when the sun gets brighter on the flower the bees get very busy in that place, out of respect I move onto the flowers in the shade. They come to me and then move onto the places I am not. We have NO NEED to harm each other for we have mutual respect toward each other.

These are the pods, as they are harvested the plants are recharged to flower all the more for they no longer extend the energy making seed.

First of many harvests.

There is 3-4 pounds of pods = perhaps 1/4 cup of tiny poppy seed.

Think the little black seed you so often see on bread.

Now I can plant these this fall or bake with them.

However be warned that if your employer drug tests it could show a positive for opiate if you bake with poppy or even purchase breads with poppies on them. We have never had to have such labs but I have heard tales of such woes.