Crop’s a-coming on
That big bad beautiful boy, believe it or don’t, is a Papaver somniferum. An opium poppy. A vividly pink one, They’re perfectly legal to grow here provided you don’t, Scout’s honor, milk them for latex.
We have it on good authority that there are times and places in Sussex when all the poppy seed-heads mysteriously vanish overnight. Generally villages with a high concentration of herbalists.
We have a couple of patches that bloom every year. The blooms are beautiful but short-lived. I mean, the petals fall off very quickly, not that trained herbalists tiptoe into our garden and steal our opium.
We also have a pair of mystery moon vines growing in Uncle B’s raised beds this year. We thought they were cukes, as we grow those and some are recycled through the compost bin and these looked similar. But the flowers, when they came, were enormous, and the things growing on them aren’t cukes.
Best guess, they’re marrows. I don’t know from marrows, but they look like fat spotty zucchinis. Thing is, neither of us has bought a marrow or a zucchini in our miserable lives, so how did they get in our soil?
I’m not big on gourds. Any serving suggestions?
July 1, 2014 — 10:42 pm
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