I scattered a lot of papaver somniferum seeds on a square meter of my garden and covered them lightly with soil. Then I abandoned them to their fate. Now many "things" are sprouting. But since my garden is 99.85% weeds, I have no idea which to pull as weeds and which to retain as poppies. I know enough to recognize and discard tomato seedlings and cucumbers (but where did they come from? I haven't grown cucumbers for years...) and the more common types of weeds, but it would really be easiest if I could simply identify the poppy seedlings rather than the far-more-numerous weeds. So who will tell or show me exactly what a poppy seedling looks like when it it, say, 2" high?
Weeds, and very thick. they must be thinned to about five inch centers when a suitable size. Here is some of my small poppies. When small it is difficult to identify the Shirley Poppies from the Papaver somniferum by the vegetation alone. http://www.durgan.org/2009/June/8 June 2009 Poppy/HTML/
I always have the tomato seedlings come up in my garden plots too. If I put any vegetable that has gone to seed into my compost bins, they come back with a vengeance one I spread compost the next spring. I guess it doesn’t get hot enuf to destroy most seeds..
