I had a strange plant that appeared in my flower bed next to the summerhouse patio. At first I thought it was a red-hot-poker as the leaves were pointed and lance-like.
It soon became about 18ins tall and developed about 10 buds. At this point, after consulting my wild flower book, I thought it was a corn cockle. Certainly the buds looked similar thogh they looked as though they might turn out to be yellow flowers.
We have been eating in the summerhouse most nights and on Saturday evening none of the buds were open. By Sunday, early afternoon, there were no flowers to be seen but one of the buds had developed into a huge seed head, like the clock on a dandelion, but two to three times bigger and much more delicate!
I had to pull out the whole plant and clutch the seedhead in my hand to stop it spreading. I put it straight into our green bin as the thought of having all these seeds flying about and taking over the garden was just too much to bear. It's bad enough with all the other weeds we have.
Since then, I have gone through my wild flower book several times and still cannot find out what it was. I don't think it was a thistle of any kind as it wasn't prickly. how I wish I had taken a photograph of it. Has anyone on here any suggestions please?
I tried to remove this post as 20 minutes after putting it up on here, I came across a site that gave me the answer. It is Goatsbeard. See: http://wildflowerfinder.org.uk/Flowers/G/GoatsBeard/GoatsBeard.htm
So it's edible then!
I'm glad you did start this thread, as the link to the site you added has some gorgeous photos and it's not a I've never seen Goatsbeard around here. Cheers :happy7:
Quote from: Silverleaf on June 25, 2014, 17:21:09
So it's edible then!
I thought for a moment I had put the thread in the "Edible Plants" section by error! Then I realised that your green bin probably takes leftover food whereas ours is a wheelie bin with a green lid, for garden waste only and is collected fortnightly. It is then turned into compost by the council and sold commercially. I believe it is heat treated but whether that kills weed seeds, I don't know. If not there will be a few more Goats Beard plants appearing around Wiltshire. We put nettles and bindweed in ours and any other perennial weeds with long roots. Anything else, such as grass cuttings, we put on the compost heaps.
On the subject of compost and green bins, we also have a "Green Joanna" which we bought from the council. It is for leftover food, peelings etc. We have had it for at least 4 years yet it never seemed to get full, no matter how much stuff we put in it, as it just kept rotting down. This past month or so, it had reached maximum fill and started leaning over, so we decided to take the door off at the bottom of the bin and take out some of the compost. We were surprised to find it was very wet and contained hundreds of worms. Not quite the compost that Monty Don takes out of his compost heap and rubs his hands through. It isn't smelly, looks very rich being almost black in colour. The only things that haven't rotted down are avocado skins. That surprised me? I have been planting out my cucumbers, beans and tomatoes, putting a dollop of this compost under each one.
If you are in Wiltshire the green waste goes to Purton now, (used to be near Calne) and you can buy the stuff back for £1 a bag from the household recycling sites. They are very flexible about the size of the bags. I find it quite excellent stuff I have had loads, due to get some more soon.
Certainly no sign of goats beard popping up. Only things I have had are the odd tomato and cucumber and one batch had a problem with goose grass so I avoid it in the autumn now. I mix with potting compost to make that go further and because it does tend to dry out and go crusty.
I do remember see the seed heads of Goats beard one holiday in Austria they are stunning.
I am very good at making wet sticky compost, I think the problem for me is too much grass mowings, I am told the answer is more browns. The courgettes do not mind how wet it is there is never much left the next time I dig.