Friday, May 4, 2012

Easy Poppy

When I grew poppies this year, I was unsure exactly what would happen, or where the delicious seeds would emerge from.

This was the first one to bloom, 'Hungarian Blue', after months of waiting.

I had planted the seedlings in October or so. And they took a while to get going.

The gorgeous flower lost its petals in a couple days, after which it looked like this for a month or so. The plant withered and the seed pod began to turn brown.



I had a lot of brown pods at that point, so I cut them all off and got out one of the clean, empty baby food jars that had been waiting to make itself useful (in my cupboard for a few years).
I used a sharp knife to carefully saw off the top of the seed pod. Then I poured the contents into the jar.
About 2 tablespoons worth of seeds came out of the 5 pods I had. One of the pods was still a bit greenish, so the seeds hadn't turned to the magnificent dark grey blue yet. They were still a bit reddish.





It was just enough to make a batch of lemon-poppyseed muffins.

2 comments:

  1. I love saving poppy seeds for baking. Many people don't know that you can do this. I hope more see your blog and save the seeds.

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  2. Thanks for visiting! The seeds were so crunchy and good. It really was easy to do. I will definitely plant more of the Hungarian Blue variety next year, so I can harvest a ton!

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