The mesclan bed in my garden is bolting. This morning while putting the babiest of chicks into their little outdoor pen in the garden, I noticed that something in the mesclan bed has lovely little blue flowers. So, I took a photo. Incidentally, I'm clueless what types of lettuce were included in the mesclan mix.
This looks so familiar, yet I just can't cinch it. Can you do a close up and post it on the 'What's This' topic. What a wonderful blue!!!
I think it may be chicory, that's the nearest I can come up with. If it is you have another food plant as well as the lovely flowers, typical farmer, getting good value from every crop.
We have chicory here, too, and it is a wonderful blue.
This is a picture from my weed book:
See it's not all nutgrass, you people have pretty weeds too. I noticed bindweed get mentioned earlier in one of the posts, that too is a very lovely weed, if it was less rampant I bet everyone would want to grow it. Japanese Knotweed was introduced as a garden ornamental (what a mistaka to make). Our Rosebay Willow Herb also is a garden escapee, but now widespread along railway lines and most pieces of spare land. This again is a beautiful plant, spoilt only by its invasive tendencies, but this one is not too bad and perhaps should be allowed back into the garden. Under the harsher Texas conditions it would probably be well behaved, what do you think?
I am very tempted to try some chicory after seeing Susans photo of it, now where have I got a bit of room, OK what's got to come out, I NEED MORE SPACE!
Thanx for the i.d. Susan. I think that is probably what it is. Now, the question would be, is it a volunteer or was it in the mesclan mix package? I wonder how many "weeds" we ate in our salads this spring.
Terry, I do agree that bindweed is lovely. It interlaced with green nettle and graced all my fences at a previous farm with its lovely blooms all season. Once I got goats, within a few months there was very little bindweed or nettle to be found on the property. The goats thought it was just lovely too.
I'm quite fond of Japanese Knotweed. I've seen big clumps of it blooming in late summer. A few years ago I dug up a bit of it from a vacant lot and planted it in our garden. I was delighted that it survived the transplant. (Little did I know!) When I found out about its aggressive nature, I sadly removed it.
My head lettuce has bolted. What do I do with it?
It is about to finish its annual cycle, dying after making seed. Since the leaves become bitter as it produces seed, go ahead and till it into the soil or compost it and plant a different crop in its place.