Hungarian Bread Seed Poppies

This year i have a flower bed full of Hungarian bread seed poppies. The blue-black poppy seeds are used in baking Hungarian poppy seed rolls and strudels.

The flowers are a stunning purple that i've been trying to grow for years. Year after year i buy a packet of seeds. Finally! Success! These annual poppies reseeded themselves from last year's poppies.

We try to grow wholesome qualities in our mind. Sometimes, we plant the intention--for generosity, for patience, for compassion--over and over again. And then--It blooms, perhaps unexpectedly, in some situation.

We can't really say that those previous attempts were failures. We have faith that by re-setting our intention for a skillful quality of mind, that beautiful mind state will eventually show up.

The purple poppies proliferate.


Photo credit: https://www.selectseeds.com/annuals/poppy-seeds-plants/poppy_hungarian_blue_seeds.aspx

Chipmunks in the Stone Wall

I have a little garden bed right in front of a stone wall. When the wall was first built a few years ago, i thought the little south-facing bed would be perfect for hot weather crops such as peppers and eggplants. It turns out the stone wall is a perfect home for chipmunks, and chipmunks eat pepper plants.

For the past three or four years, i've tried putting milk carton "collars" around the pepper plants with mixed success (read: many failures).

Oh, how many times do i fight the current of Life, trying to row in the direction I want to go.

This summer, i give up. I surrender my garden bed to the chipmunks. After all, i do enjoy watching them dash and dart here and there.

I'm planting Russian sage in this hot spot of a micro-climate. The peppers and eggplants are going somewhere else--farther away from the home of the chipmunks.