I just placed my seed order from Pinetree (superseeds.com) Mostly vegetables, but a few flowers and herbs too.
In my flower garden I'm going to grow poisonous plants this year for the foundation; so maybe the rabbits will leave them alone :-) Foxgloves, nicotiana, and opium poppies. Do I need to plant the poppies as soon as the ground surface thaws a little? I seem to recall that they need a few freeze/thaw cycles to germinate well, but that might be a different kind of poppy. Can they be transplanted?
I have some wild flower meadows and I always seed the poppies after the ground has cooled below 40 F (4 C). That way the germinate early in the spring. The freeze thaw cycles help the seeds penetrate into the soil, and by the time it is that cold there aren't many birds around to gobble them up. They don't seed well for me, or maybe the fenches eat them. I pretty much have to seed them as annuals every year. I've never transplanted them, but suspect they would not do well in pots, even big pots. They have long tap roots.
Not sure where you are in the world, but if you're in the US, please be advised that opium poppy seeds are legal, but the plants are not. On the theory that you, too, can prevent lawyers, it may be best to find a different species.
Really? I thought it was only illegal if you extract the sap or tried to smoke them or something. :-/ Maybe I should plant a different kind of poppy then; they are all bitter and somewhat poisonous.
When I first moved here there were annual red poppies all over the place. They looked like Flander's poppies except they were double. Not sure what happened to them; one year they just didn't come back.
Unless you are planting a huge field of them without a license, or have slashed the seed pods for opium in plain view of one and all, law enforcement is not apt to take notice. Unless of course they are already arresting you for something else and one of them is aware of what opium poppies look like. I usually grow hungarian blue breadseed poppies for the seed. Technically illegal. Fortunately you don't need to plant a lot of them to give enough seed for baking for a year. Even if you make Hungarian goodies that are stuffed with poppy seeds.
I sow them in the fall. I missed last year because I was ill, so DH will soon be reminded of what the stupid seed costs to buy by the pound. I suppose I could try stratifying them in the fridge. All I would lose is a couple pinches of seed if that fails.
The seeds are legal, the flowers are legal, the dried seed pods are legal. The plants and the straw are illegal.
On Tue, 12 Feb 2013 15:57:17 +0000 (UTC), NightMist wrot
Quoting from
formatting link
previously referenced: (a) Schedule II shall consist of the drugs and other substances, by whatever official name, common or usual name, chemical name, or brand name designated, listed in this section. Each drug or substance has been assigned the Controlled Substances Code Number set forth opposite it. ... (3) Opium poppy and poppy straw
And if you need more: 21 USC 802:
formatting link
The term "opium poppy" means the plant of the species Papaver somniferum L., except the seed thereof.
And for the rest of this argument, I refer you to:
I repeat, just because you haven't been prosecuted, doesn't mean you won't be. Depends on the political climate, who you've po'd, whether someone recognizes what you're growing, and the current state of finances of the local law enforcement agencies (property seizure laws are commonly brought into play on drug busts).
Would I chance it? Not on your tintype, and when I worked for a nursery, that's what I told the owners who had purchased some plants for sale. Oddly enough, the plants in question all disappeared by the next day I worked -- I'm guessing they had a chance to talk to their lawyer.
Nah, the US federal code does a good job of covering it all, leaving an exception for possessing seeds to cover the culinary uses. The plant itself, and all parts except for the separated seeds, are considered Schedule II drugs.
Poppies in general are very sensitive to 2,4-D and similar auxin analogs. I'm going to guess it was spray drift or just volatilized
2,4-D that did in your poppies. The good news is that double Shirley poppies (the double form of corn poppies, the ones mentioned "In Flanders Fields" are pretty easily available on the seed market. e.g.
formatting link
last source is not far from me -- definitely some of the prettier farms in the area.
Oh yes, the d*** deer that eat just about everything else I plant, don't bug my P. orientale.
All true enough. Just because you can buy the cut flowers, and the dried seed pods (craft stores) it does not mean that they are legal. Just just that that part of the law is laxly enforced in some places.
That could be. My neighbors use *tons* of 2,4-d (I can smell it when I come home after work if the lawn service truck has been around. They've even sprayed my garden thru the chain link fence a few times.) I use tiny amounts of 2,4-d in the front yard only to spot-treat thistles and dandelions, and I never use it in the back. I weed the back yard by hand.
Anyway, these poppies looked like shirleys but they were all red instead of mixed colors; frilly with a small black center. The pods were about the size of a pecan. And the rabbits left them alone.
we have them around in the limestone mulch each year. no issues other than if we don't thin them out or try to contain them we'd be overrun.
formatting link
hard to say without knowing the conditions for the previous season and how they were treated.
perhaps you mowed them down before the seeds were ready? do you have any disturbed and bare soil for the seeds to sprout in? they don't seem to get going in the fields here or in the perennial gardens, but they do find edges and bare spots to use along with the wide open limestone areas.
we let them go until they are done flowering and starting to dry up. then when we harvest the stems there are plenty of seeds blowing around. when the cooler and wet weather returns in the fall then they start sprouting and will stay green through the winter and then bloom the next summer.
You certainly do have a heroine manufacturing culture though I must admit the numbers are small compared to the heros. Look at Wonderwoman, Lara Croft, Pricess Leia, Buffy and Ellen DeGeneres. BTW Kim Kardashian is not from Afganistan but home grown. There are few imports except perhaps Hermione Granger and Lucy Lawless.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.