Call me a sensitive petal if you like, but I'm always aware that when I grow and harvest vegies I am cutting these plants down in their prime, depriving them of their full lifespan. It doesn't really bother me, but it's always in the back of my mind, and so when I saw both of our chicory plants sending up spectacular flowering stems, I decided to let them grow on, flower and set seed, not only to see what happens, but also to collect the seed. And this morning we got the most delightful surprise.
This beautiful flower is a good, impressive size,
more than an inch across, and it's very pretty.
It's from the chicory plant with the superb cultivar
name of Cicoria Catalogna Puntarelle Brindisina.
It's a type with noticeably serrated, emerald leaves.
This chicory has sent up multiple flower stems,
some curled weirdly, others fairly straight. Its next
door neighbor in the vegie bed, Cicoria Spadona,
has long paddle-shaped leaves, and its flower
spike has reached six feet in length, but no
flowers yet. Stay tuned for that event, folks.
These are the respective seed packets, bought here in
Australia from The Italian Gardener.
The heat of summer is not a great time to be growing leafy greens in Sydney gardens, and planting new crops really should be delayed for another eight weeks or so, until things cool down a fraction. So, I'm getting my kicks right now just letting the existing spring plantings live out life to the full, spending one glorious summer flowering then setting seed, just like they did a zillion generations ago when they were the wild ancestors of these delicious kitchen garden cultivars. Somehow this thought appeals to me more than it rationally should.
