foglie nell'orto / leaves in the vegetable garden

chard and dill besieged by poppy plants

I am an inconstant gardener: I alternate periods of activity in my little vegetable garden to periods of neglect. The excuse for the latter is usually bad weather and since we had plenty of it in March and April, currently portions of my garden are in need of attention.

One thing that happened during the weeks when wind and rain made work outside unappealing, is that poppies took over the section where a few months ago I planted some rainbow chards. The poppy seeds were in my compost pile, so their distribution is unplanned. While I want some poppies in my garden, first for the flowers and then to harvest the seeds, I am not interested in turning my garden over to them, so I had to uproot some. I feel really bad when I have to get rid of a plant, especially if it is not, strictly speaking, a weed.

The compost pile contains also dill seeds, so I have a few plants of the fragrant herb here and there. In the early morning light, the dewy leaves are a nice subject for a photo.

This is my contribution to edition #30 of Black and White Wednesday - A Culinary Photography Event created by Susan of The Well-Seasoned Cook and hosted this week by Brii of briggishome.

The photo was shot in color and then converted to sepia.

This post contains the gallery of images submitted to the event.

On this page, you can find out who is hosting the current and future editions of the event.

Comments

[Lynne]

A delightful array of dill and chard-love the sepia effect. I, too am an inconstant gardener and get frustrated easily by the weeds that seem to grow faster than my plants. It's great to be back to BWW.

[brii]

We have had a hard winter and a dreadfully dry spring.
Now after almost a month of rain, everything is …breathing again.
In the middle of the grass I have 4 small plants of Borago officinalis, Flo cuts the grass around them. :-)
Even if they are out of place, it doesn't matter. They lighten up the green grass with their blue star shaped little flowers.
The round up is online, http://briggishome.wordpress.com/2012/05/02/black-white-wednesday-30-a-culinary-gallery-en/
Thank you for your lovely photo.
baciussss

[Laura]

Simona, ho seminato dei papaveri aspettandomi una pianta piccola. Quando mi sono accorta di quanto grandi erano era troppo tardi per trapiantarli cosi' li ho dovuti eliminare purtroppo. Sono cose che si imparano solo provando. Nel Veneto si mangiano le piante immature dei papaveri del grano, mi domando se le piante che ho seminato, legion of honor si possano mangiare.

Mi scuso per non aver visitato il tuo blog ma il lavoro e' stato cosi' impegnativo ultimamente che non ho tempo di fare niente. Per fortuna ho una sola classe rimasta, poi avro' piu' tempo. Ho deciso di cambiare carriera, la paga e pessima e non ne vengo fuori, sto cercando di crearmi una carriera nel giardinaggio.

Speriamo di vederci prima o poi.

[Susan]

What a shame you had to cull the poppy plants. If they are the California or Shirley varieties, they are among the most delicately lovely flowers which virtually arrange themselves in vases. And yet, they can be invasive and don't take well to transplanting. Sigh.

Your soft sepia tones make a fine palette to express your patch of leafy edibles. Great choice for BWW. : }

[Simona Carini]

Hi Lynne. Weeds are a big problem and indeed, if one misses a few days, they easily take over and then the battle is more difficult. I need to focus on the good things I harvest to motivate myself. I must say that a side effect of the large poppy plants is that weeds are less strong around them, because the leaves keep them in the shadow.

Brii, I love borage flowers! But, do you harvest the leaves? They are so good. My borage plants tend to put out many stems. It was a pleasure to contribute.

Ciao Laura. Proprio l'altro giorno il signore che mi aiuta a curare il giardino mi ha detto che le foglie tenere si possono mangiare in insalata. Io ancora non ho provato. Sai che ho notato che le piante dei miei papaveri ogni anno vengono fuori piu' grosse. Non so che dire, sara' il terreno ben nutrito. Non ti preoccupare, immaginavo che fossi molto presa. Ti mando un messaggio a parte.

Ciao Susan. These are note California poppies. We have those in a different part of the garden. And yes, poppies apparently don't like to be moved, so I couldn't move the invaders elsewhere. Your comment reminded me that I have a few photos of a California poppy blooming: have you ever seen what they do to open up their petals? I must dig into my photo archive...