In years gone by the Flanders poppy spread with mankind right around the Mediterranean Sea and across Europe from Russia to Great Britain. Man, with bags of wheat seed, probably carried it across the English Channel, as the poppy was a weed of wheat fields. Another alternative is that the seed was carried in soil attached to a garden implement.
There is much mythology associated with these poppies because they have grown for centuries around the Mediterranean. They appear on ancient Greek friezes and seed has been found in the tombs of the Pharaohs. One story is that they originated in China. It was then a white flower from which a potent drug was distilled, called the Flower of Forgetfulness. After a battle when much blood was shed upon a field, the poppies grew red the next year, with a black cross in the middle. These poppies are still a wild flower and each year I see variations of colour in the overall expanse of red from shades of orange to almost purple.
Throughout my childhood as I discovered the joys of embroidery I particularly liked the designs that featured what were commonly called the Field flowers. These were the red Flanders poppy, blue cornflower, golden wheat heads and sometimes the white Marguerite daisy. When holidaying in Europe with my husband in 1990 I realised a life long ambition, to see these flowers blooming amongst the wheat crops.
Two years later when we moved to live on the Granite Belt I realised that I could grow the red Flanders poppy to begin flowering in October and continue to the end of November. The poppy flower has a small cup-like seed head that perhaps contains a thousand seeds. These seeds are as small as ground black pepper and just as hard. As the seed ripens they fall as from a pepper pot on to the ground and remain there in the soil until conditions are ready for germination.
The field poppies, or Flanders poppies as they are now known, were weeds of the wheat fields of France and Belgium. Due to the devastation of World War One no wheat was planted in the fields over which the armies of Europe fought. The soil of these fields was disturbed by the shelling, trench digging and grave digging. We have all heard of the heavy rains that turned this arena into a quagmire during the winter months, but in the spring the poppies appeared with a blaze or red wherever the soil had been disturbed. The soldiers from Commonwealth countries had never seen the like and they named them the Flanders Poppy.
Each year we cultivate our Remembrance Field towards the end of June. This throws the fine seed on to the surface of the soil. Firstly we turn the soil over with a disc plough. Then harrows are dragged over the field to level the soil.
It is then necessary that the seed be kept moist for the next two weeks. It is possible that we will have a down pour of winter rain to soak the soil, but if rain doesn’t fall we apply water via overhead irrigation sprinklers.
This winter of 2008 has been cold and dry. The photo below shows the frost on the field one July morning. The poppies have germinated but are only small plants at the time this photo was taken.
The frosts have continued into August but I have great faith that once the warm weather arrives in September the poppies in the Remembrance Field will grow rapidly.
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