How to grow Poppies from Poppies

As decoration, ingredient for food or just as a simple flower, these are the most common ways of using poppies. Not just the poppy itself, the flower is so beautiful and the colors in it so bright, that they make gardens look outstanding or table flower vases look wonderful. Lots of foods also contain poppies, not as a plant but as a seed that is used in many recipes for different dishes from around the world, very common in bagels, muffins and cakes. Delicious right, cooked seeds are harmless, but some fresh aren’t, so don’t confuse normal poppies with opium poppies, because if you do, you’ll get a surprise after you use the poppies and the drug agents contained in the seed start make effect. Remember only opium poppies contain substances that can drug people (and are of course illegal), the others don’t, so keep on growing them if you want there is no danger in it.

If you don’t have any poppies in your garden and you want some, well you must get seeds, but if you are a lazy or busy person, well you could buy the plant already grown, and then plant it in your garden. This is an option where you already have the flower, you just need to follow a procedure for it to spread the seeds by itself and you don’t need to start from the beginning. Want to know how? It is very simple but the flower will need space for its growing, ideally about 30cm apart from other plants, but they will thrive on less space if they are well fertilized, then you should thin the plants out so they have at least 15cm between each plant. You could either simply remove all of the smallest plants, or if you want to conserve your seedlings, carefully transplant them to other parts of the garden or a flower vase. If the poppies already have the flower bud, you can start with the process of growing it. If the tip of the stalk starts bending over with the weight of the bud, you could cut it off, then it will straighten and grow. This takes a while, but you will se the fast progress of your plant if you keep watering and fertilizing well, after that, the flowering begins. As soon as the petals appear, stop watering; do not water unless the plants are wilting. There, you have bred your first poppy plant! Poppies will flower for a fortnight or more, but after that sadly and slowly their petals will drop, their pods will begin to swell and ripen. They will eventually dry out and turn yellow like straw. But that’s not the end; poppies produce over 1000 seeds in each pod. And to collect seeds for a further crop, wait until the pods are dry out, and simply remove the pods, and crack the seeds free.