#seedling identification

[tattooed-alchemist]

Trying to make some sense of my semi-free-styling veggie bed. I planted the shelling peas and broccoli right before I broke my wrist. Everything else got wild-seeded from allowing plants to just do their thing last summer.

I have some seeds to get in the ground but a lot of stuff I’m going to watch and thin and see how it goes.

This bed has had it’s soaker hose inspected and reburied which was the hard part. That’s also what convinced some raspberry cane to crawl over. I’ll want to dig that out sooner than later.

P.S. I looked up borage and I am right! The leaves have a cucumber flavor when eaten raw, bees love it and it can be a green manure. To name just a few reasons to grow it.

[wildestdreamsgardens]

Liatris spicata:  Florestan Violet with variegated pokeweed.  Both of these plants reseed gently in the garden.  The pokeweed seedlings are easy to see because they are as blond and pink stemmed from the start as they are as adults, but the liatris seedlings start as a little grasslike needle between small small paddle shaped cotyledons.  Easy to miss or to pluck out like a bit of grass.

One of my blog projects for next spring is to provide a series of images for seedling identification. Given that sustainable gardening practices include replenishing plants via saved and self-sown seeds this would seem to be a worthwhile effort. 

Below (center):  Angelica gigas is another self-sowing plant (biennial) here in the north it is sometimes what I call triennial (taking 3 years to bloom).  Unlike Digitalis and Alcea, deadheading before seed production will not produce another year of bloom.  I have never seen it happen.  So let it go to seed.  This will bloom in light shade, as little as 3 to 5 hours of sun (possibly less with good light).  Loves moisture and hates drought conditions.   Takes full sun here in the north but is sensitive to leaf burn in hot dry summers, so some shade is beneficial.  Seed germinates better as the seed ages 2nd and 3rd year gets much better results.  Angelica seedlings emerge looking like stocky Italian parsley seedlings. Distinctively Apiaceae