Topic: Guerilla gardening with nigella, from the Asian supermarket?

[woodypecks]

.......shhh ! ......you go for it girl ! and throw in some poppy seeds !  YEE ! HA !

[hellohelenhere]

Hehe, I actually thought I was posting a query about planting seeds that were bought as spices, I didn't foresee the whole 'introduced species' debate.... ooops!

Anyway, on the subject of Indian spices, ajwain is another one I've discovered lately - looks like caraway seed, tastes and smells more like thyme, is great with fish - only a very small amount required, or it would be overpowering. The English name for it is 'Bishop's Weed', and it is also mistakenly called lovage sometimes.

[simon404]

I've got nigella on my plot and leave a bit of it to flower each year, looks lovely I think, it's easy to control by hoeing where it's not wanted. I didn't even know it could be eaten so you've taught me something new. Would make a great choice for guerrilla gardening I'd have thought - and poppies- and english marigolds.  :)

[ACE]

You can be banned from keeping animals for bad husbandry, its a pity the same does not happen to some so called gardeners.

.......shhh ! ......you go for it girl ! and throw in some poppy seeds !  YEE ! HA !

I'll rest my case!

[caroline7758]

Can I be provocative and ask for tips on how to get Nigella to spread? It's my favourite flower but it doesn't seem keen to self-seed in my garden, no matter how much seed I throw around every year! :(

[saddad]

I've always found that, like popies, wherever the soil is disturbed they pop up..  :-\

[thifasmom]

Can I be provocative and ask for tips on how to get Nigella to spread? It's my favourite flower but it doesn't seem keen to self-seed in my garden, no matter how much seed I throw around every year! :(

plants are funny like that, take my garden for instance it started volunteering California poppies all of its own accord about three years ago. since then it have self seeded and overwintered really well, my next door neighbour on the other hand can't get the thing to grow not for love or money i have given him seedlings, fresh seed established plants but except for the seedlings/ established plants growing and no where looking as great as the ones that i have planted out or got through self sown seed. his simply wont overwinter or self seed itself ???.

[hellohelenhere]

Caroline, is your garden shady? I used to have a garden that was overshadowed by a bloody great eucalyptus next door - 17m high or so, and growing more to our side, being the south. Almost the entire garden is shaded from it, from both rain or sun, and the ground is bone dry as the tree leaches all the moisture out. About the only border flowers that do well in it are aquilegia, foxglove and sedum. I tried nasturtiums once and they just vanished, which was a new experience for me, but I guess there just wasn't enough light for them!
(This is an ongoing problem, as my brother now has that flat, and we're still trying to tackle the tree - but the neighbour won't talk to us about it, which poses a bit of a problem!)

[Mrs Ava]

Didn't Gertrude Jekyll always have a handful of seeds in her pocket and whenever she went visiting anyones gardens, she would suruptitiously deposit a sprinkling in the beds??

I can appreciated how lovely it is to see wild flowers springing up in the verges, but in North Devon, and probably lots of other places, the species daffodil has almost been wiped out and replaced by different cultivated varieties.

Nigella started in my back garden, a lovely big patch under my willow tree which looked fab, but after 3 or 4 years it has now vanished, but now I have a big patch in my front garden!  It is moving through the neighbourhood I fear.

[Robert_Brenchley]

If Nigella was going to become an invasive pest, it would have done so already, given the number of people who plant it. I don't see the harm.

Himalayan balsam is definitely a pest, I had it all over my plot at one point. Firtunately, in a domestic environment, it's easy to deal with as it's a tender annual, and the seeds are very short-lived. It was all down the banks of the Wye when I was a kid, swamping everything. It wasn't in my flower book and it really puzzled me.

[ACE]

If Nigella was going to become an invasive pest, it would have done so already, given the number of people who plant it. I don't see the harm.

Things have changed a lot lately with people throwing seed willy nilly all over the place and never a care for the consequences, so I disagree with your statement. It can be invasive under check, so left to its own devices what then. I would rather be careful than sorry.

[hellohelenhere]

One the one hand, I tend to agree with Robert that nigella has been around long enough, without causing a problem, that it's probably not going to. It's been in our gardens for perhaps a couple of hundred years? But then, things can change, if you have a few years of warmer weather. Various things are getting a foothold here due to overall warmer temperatures - termites, for example, I heard a lot about, a few years ago! So maybe we shouldn't be complacent about any invasive plant.

Having said that, if we're talking about guerilla gardening, we're talking about scrappy urban spaces, or I hope we are. Very few plants can thrive enough to cause infestation, in ground like that, without watering. Buddleia, rosebay willowherb, nettles, and some other weeds... not much else. So I doubt that a few cheery poppies, nigella, or marigolds are truly going to reach problematic numbers. Since birds can spread the seeds, that logic would have to apply to gardens too, and you could argue that no-one should plant ANY non-native plant in their garden. Not even that, since one can still alter the local eco-system, even with plants native to other parts of these same islands. ACE, you grow exotics, don't you? Tut tut!! *

This thread has given me food for thought, though.

*sorry - I may regret that, but just couldn't resist... :D

[ACE]

TOUCHE   ;)

[PurpleHeather]

http://www.uni-graz.at/~katzer/engl/Nige_sat.html

I found the above a rather interesting read. I did not know that it could be used as a spice/herb.

Much prettier I feel in the less wild places like roundabouts than the dandelion. Probably would not do any harm to the countryside on a roundabout, dare I suggest..

You can use culinary seeds in the garden, they do grow, as do lots of seeds from things like peppers tomatoes melons sunflowers, anything really but the results would not be guaranteed.

Mung beans can be grown for bean shoots too, on a window sill in a few days. Ideal for teaching kids about growing.

As an after thought, since people feeding birds with bread have been prosecuted for littering, could the same law apply to some one spreading seeds?

[saddad]

Probably, unless you live in Todmorden...
Don't get caught!  ;D

[dtw]

Why not join a guerilla gardening group in your area and see what they plant?
Get some tips from here...

[Robert_Brenchley]

Oxford Ragwort was planted in one garden, at Oxford Botanical Gardens. It's now spread far and wide. So if a plant wants to go wild, it will. For that matter, neither Japanese Knotweed nor Himalayan Balsam was ever deliberately introduced to the wild that I know of. We're talking about urban gardening here, after all. It's not that far from gardens.

[ACE]

Did anybody see the Natural World programme last night on bbc2.  All about no mans land alongside the iron curtain. Beautiful, natural, no interference from ignorant people. I expect seed scatterers would have been shot on sight, (give me a gun).

neither Japanese Knotweed nor Himalayan Balsam was ever deliberately introduced to the wild that I know of.

I do not know either but I am willing to lay my money on some criminal act taking place when somebody thought they would look nice on that waste land. Lets scatter some spare seed there.

[hellohelenhere]

You seem determined to think that it's deliberate, ACE! I agree with Robert, I think that if something is going to go wild, it's because it can thrive all too well in the new environment, finds an un-filled or ill-defended natural niche, plus absence of old-country predators/rivals, and can spread quickly and easily. Not because someone with malice or stupidity gave it one single head start in one single place - which could as easily be a garden as a verge, the seeds don't care if they're in a 'garden' or on 'wasteground', it's all the same to them.

[chriscross1966]

thanks guys for the further recipe ideas.

this is like two conversation now, isn't it.

 ;D

Naan Roasties:

Parboil 2lbs potatos cut into roastie sized pieces for 8-10 minutes. put in a plastic bag with 1desert spoonful of oil, the same of butter, 2 teaspoons kalonji, 1 teaspoon of cumin seeds. shake it up until the butter is melted and the potatos are well covered in seeds, tip out into a preheated pan and put in the oven at about gas mk6-7 200 degrees or so..... great with any fusion style mash-up of British and Indian cuisines  or just by themselves with beer...

chrisc