Baking, Flowering Arranging, or Crafting? Try Growing Breadseed Poppies

31 October 2024, written by Barbara Pleasant

Of all the flowers you might grow to add colour and insect interest to your vegetable garden, hardy annual breadseed poppies top the list. Growing on the same schedule as peas, cabbage, and other spring vegetables, breadseed poppies reseed themselves year after year and never miss a season of pleasing gardeners and bees. The plants produce generous crops of little black seeds that are great for baking, and you can use the dried seed pods for crafts or dried flower arrangements. Poppy pollen is of huge interest to honeybees, for whom it is a nutritional superfood.

Late fall is the best time to sow poppy seeds, which is the only way to grow them, because breadseed poppy seedlings are the world’s worst transplanters. Where the seeds sprout is where the plants must grow, and they germinate best in cold soil.

Breadseed Poppies

Other annual poppies including field poppies (Papaver rhoeas) and California poppies (Eschscholzia californica) are great to grow in flower beds and wildflower meadows, but they do not persist long in the ever-changing world of a vegetable garden. Breadseed poppies do, and they probably should be called garden poppies because they thrive in fertile, organically-enriched soil that is cleaned up and cultivated during the winter months. The seedlings emerge alongside cool-season weeds like henbit and chickweed, and they love life under rowcover tunnels. All plant parts contain bitter substances that make them unpalatable to rabbits, deer, and even slugs.

'Hungarian Blue' breadseed poppy — Heirloom Hungarian Blue breadseed poppy

Can I Legally Grow Opium Poppies?

Breadseed poppies are classified as Papaver somniferum, the same species as opium poppies. Opiate drugs are made from the green seed capsules and not from the seeds, but raw poppy seeds can contain very small amounts of opiate-related chemicals. For this reason, sports organisations recommend that professional athletes avoid foods containing poppy seeds. High temperatures reduce trace chemicals by half, so crackers and bagels are the best ways to cook any concerns you may have into oblivion.

It is quite legal to grow poppies for flowers and edible seeds, and seed companies offer many wonderful old and new varieties. Red and white ‘Danish Flag’ has graced gardens for 200 years, and ‘Hungarian Blue’ is hugely popular for its grape-coloured flowers and strong seed production. The strain I’ve been growing for fifteen years resembles ‘Charlottesville’, but recently I tweaked things by adding ‘Jimi's Purple Haze’ to the medley. Selected in Oregon, the vigorous ‘Jimi's Flag Mix’ is perfect if you want to choose favourite colours to encourage in your garden.

Poppy seedlings — Weed around breadseed poppy seedlings that appear in agreeable spots

Growing Breadseed Poppies in Your Vegetable Garden

Is there a little space left near your garlic? Do you know where you plan to grow a spring salad garden under cover, or sow spring peas? These are promising spots to scatter breadseed poppy seeds over the soil, and mark the spot. There is no need to cover the seeds. Just let them roll into soil crevices and forget about them. At intervals through winter and early spring, little grey-green seedlings will appear, becoming more noticeable as winter turns to spring. Weed around the poppy seedlings, and thin plants that seem hopelessly crowded.

Poppy plants that get an early start in cold weather tend to be big, robust plants, while those that appear later are slightly smaller. Don’t worry if the plants blow over in a storm. They will recover and keep blooming until they are done.

How to Harvest and Use Poppy Seed Heads

You can use green seed heads in summer flower arrangements, but if you want tasty, viable seeds, leave the pods until the stems start turning brown, a sign that the plant is no longer sending moisture or nutrients to the seeds. In early summer I cut poppy pods twice a week, to catch them at their peak. Poppy seed pods left outdoors too long can take on moisture, causing the seeds to go mouldy.

Keep poppy stems upright at all times when harvesting, lest the seeds fall out through the holes in the tops of the pods. Use scissors to cut pods with long stems, place them in a tall jar, and bring them indoors to continue drying for a couple of weeks.

Decorated poppy seedheads — Barbara's poppy women were inspired by A Swiss Garden

Harvest the seeds by shaking them into a broad bowl or other open container. Let the seeds dry for another week or so before storing them in a cool, dark place. Meanwhile, as you clean up after spent plants in the garden, scatter seeds where you want plants to grow in future seasons. Because of their high oil content, breadseed poppy seeds can remain viable up to 6 years, so you can quickly build up your garden’s poppy seed bank by throwing down tens of thousands of poppy seeds each summer.

Once they have been emptied of seeds, you can use poppy seed heads in dried arrangements or crafts. Because of their lines and curves, poppy seed pods also are a popular subject for watercolor painting. There is no hurry. Dry poppy seed pods will last for years.