Seeds

WHEN SEEDS ARE STARTING TO FORM

| gaiainaction
It is that time of the summer when the garden has about half of its plants in bloom, and the other half is busy forming seeds and dispersing them too. Summer breezes are helping. And despite the cooler weather and the rain, or maybe because of it, the garden is very lush at this time, and seeds are starting to be plentiful. Personally I find many seed-heads very beautiful and usually want to take them into the house for the winter, this far I have only photographed them in the past few days.
Above are the seeds of one of the Willow-herb plants (Epiloblum). I grow these in the garden, that is to say, they come growing by themselves, and this summer I just let them be.
  • Seeds of one of the many grasses
  • Even some wheat came growing in the garden, probably work of the birds
  • Plantago major seeds
  • Chelidonium majus seeds

The photo to the right above are the seeds of the Greater Celandine (Chelidonium majus), a medicinal plant that I grow in the garden, it is not for use as it is a highly toxic plant and not suitable for self-medication. The flower is pretty though and I get satisfaction from growing any herbal plant. The photo on the left are the seeds of the broad-leaved plantain (plantago major) I have one large one growing in the garden and it is beautiful. I use it mainly for treating insect bites, as a compress.

  • Ceanothus, Californian lilac seeds
  • Seeds of the Buttercup Ranunculaceae –
  • Seeds of the Chives plant Allium schoenoprasum
So this is what happened to all my glorious poppies, I have now a myriad of seed-heads and will be able to share many seeds, and use a few of the beautiful seed-heads as winter decoration inside.
  • Palomena prasina – green shield-bug – nymph
  • Nettles seeds Urtica dioica

While looking over the garden for seed-heads I found this green shield-bug nymph, and not only one of them, the garden is full of these beautiful little creatures, and that is no wonder either as earlier this summer there was a multitude of the adult type mating all over the garden. This common shield bug is native to Ireland and feeds on tree and plant juices. They are harmless.

The nettles grew very tall this summer, they are now in seed. I used quite a few in cooking, but mainly I grew them for the caterpillars of Red Admiral butterflies.

  • Seed-heads of the Forget-me-nots, Myosotis
  • Ripening seeds of the Parsley plant Petroselinum crispum
  • Seeds of Marigold plant Calendula officinalis
And this is a most recent photo of part of my garden. It has been and still is a truly wild experience. I would go into the garden and discover more and more wild plants and many insects and creatures. The thistles are easily 3 meters high and not yet at seed stage. I will have to contain them a little when they do seed as otherwise the garden will be impossible to walk in. I firmly believe that nature is very strong, it will never be totally destroyed, it will always survive.
Apart from everything else, the beauty of nature is what we need to survive mentally and spiritually.

WHAT HAPPENED TO MY BITTER GOURD?

| gaiainaction

This evening while having a bite to eat in the conservatory, Ian all of a sudden noticed something about the bitter gourd. The other day I had taken away the four other gourd plants that had done nothing all summer and were obviously not going to produce any gourds. Because I have been busy with other stuff today I had not noticed that something was happening with the gourd, and happening it was! First thing we noticed was the change in colour, from green to yellow, this had happened very fast, then the fact that the bottom of the gourd had split open, and red seeds were to be seen. Amazed, I had never expected the gourd to act in this way, I was planning to harvest it some day soon, maybe I waited too long. What a surprise it was. I better make a note of this for my next year’s management of growing gourds. Well it was my first time growing them, and I only got one female flower which in turn became this particular gourd. I’m very glad to have been able to follow it’s development even despite this surprising end 🙂
DSCF9742

DSCF9746    DSCF9744