Adventures in seeds. This is the easiest of seed starting — I had a lot of work to do this weekend as I prepped for spring break ending and an attempt at e-learning for my students, so not much gardening time.
But poppies, love-in-a-mist, borage, bachelor’s button, and violas are all ‘direct sow in the garden’ right now in my zone — literally, open the seed packet and sprinkle it where you want ’em. I think many of these are annual, but if they drop enough seed, they may get established…? If not, I can sprinkle more next year.
Borage makes gorgeous edible starry blue flowers, so it’s great to plant in amidst your veggies, and then it can be used for salads, drinks, candied for topping cakes, etc. Violas are edible too, so ditto.
In theory, one should rake a tiny bit of dirt over some of them (I think sprinkling compost also works), but I didn’t even manage that, so we’ll see what actually comes up. But it was nice and drizzly that day and the next, so I’m hopeful. Oriental poppies you don’t even do that — they need light to germinate.
The California poppies are because I miss my friends in CA, and miss seeing the highway medians ablaze with them.
(I want to pick up some Oriental poppies too, which are perennial in Chicago; I’ve seen some neighbors growing gorgeous stands of them. I think I’m going to do those from seedlings, though, not seeds. They’ll be planted in the fall, for next year.)
More on poppies in Chicago: https://www.chicagobotanic.org/plantinfo/faq/poppies
More on growing Oriental poppies: https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/…/growing-oriental-poppies…
