Det er ved at være på høje tid at få fundet spots til valmue-bede og spredt birkes hvis de skal nå at få fat før alt mulig andet ukrudt gør det. Så her er lige en glimrende guide skrevet af Fogle og tyvstjålet fra Poppies.org til inspiration :
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Okay, I took me the better of several years to finally finish this one. But I think I pulled it off: all my personal experience of years of free framing poppies compressed into one handy FAQ. I hope you gents and ladies will enjoy. Without further ado........
Fogle’s Free Farming FAQ (aka Guerrilla Farming)
Discl: this FAQ only covers the guerrilla farming of opium poppies the Fogle way in the Low Countries. Some details might be different depending on your local conditions.
What is Guerilla farming?
Guerrilla farming has a slightly negative tone to it because of the word guerrilla which implies some kind of warfare. This is true because there is a war going on, the war on drugs. Although we didn't started it, anyone can become a casualty. Don’t become one, and guerrilla farming can help you with that.
The essence of GF can be summed up by: “do you thing while staying under radar”. As a result you can be self sufficient in providing you and your family with strong medicines. Medicines that otherwise could only be obtained by an increasingly anal medical profession or a dangerous black market. Guerrilla farming is a vehicle to independence from both. Free Farming is thus a way to independece and freedom.
The term “staying under radar” means you will be farming without arousing suspicions. To accomplish this your actions need to be quick -hit and run-, disguised -sowing from a jar hidden in your sleeve while walking the dog- and plausible -having a excuse ready for being at your guerrilla site, like walking you dog or collection wild flowers-.
From now on I will be using the words Free-Farming instead or along GF.
What kind of poppies, strain etc?
We want papaver somniferum. This is the opium poppy. Luckily for us all poppy seed sold for baking purposes is papaver somniferum. There is a genetically engineered strain cultivated in Tasmania that has mainly thebaine as its main alkaloid. This is not good. Although it is rare, they do exist. Keep this in mind.
Papaver somniferum is a hardy annual with white, red or purple flowers, or a mix of these (white/red hybrid = pink, white/purple hybrid = lila) . The flowers can be single, semi double or double like the peonies. Color is not related to opium content.
Where do I get my seeds?
Here opinions differ widely. Some say to buy high-potency seeds from online vendors. Other say you can use garden varieties bought at the garden center. Or even to use poppy seeds from the supermarket, sold for baking.
If you are going to grow poppies in you back yard with a limited garden size, and have enough money: then go for the high potency online seeds. But these seeds are far too expensive to be used in free farming. You will need several ounces of seeds to successfully sow a single guerrilla site.
1) The best option is to use the seeds that came from pods you know are good. Like those purples that came from a crafting company. That way you can be sure the poppies that you are growing are those you know and love.
2) The next best options is a supermarket, or better an Iranian or Indian shop. Most commercial poppy farmers sell the pods/opium to the pharmaceutical companies while selling the seeds to be used as food. So most supermarket seeds come from high morphine strains primarily grown for the alkaloids.
I started my guerilla activities with a 100 gram bag of organic poppy seeds from the local organic shop. These seeds came Turkey and had dark purple flowers. It took me two years of growing to multiply the total amount of seeds to several kilo’s. And because only about 20% of all sites yield a good harvest, you will need a good surplus of seeds.
What makes a good guerilla site?
A good free-farming site is determent by four factors:
1) soil type
2) possible competition from other “weeds”
3) accessibility
4) continuity
Let me explain, first: soil conditions. Poppy seeds are very small and have very little food supply stored in them. That is why the primary root needs to establish itself quick before it runs out of energy. Dense compacted soils are no good for that reason, we want lose sandy soils where the roots can find support instantly. Preferably with lots of rocks and stones so the roots can take advantage of the small cracks and cavities that often appear next to a stone after frost. They even seem to do well in cracks along pavements.
Another thing is acidity, they thrive on neutral to slightly alkaline soils, while doing poorly on acid, ie peat, soils.
Second, competition: many other weeds have larger seeds, with more stored food. This means they can grow larger before their roots have to be established. To combat this poppies tend to germinate sooner (often in the autumn) compared to other weeds giving them a slight advantage in spring. When inspecting a possible site and you can see lots of other weeds already sprouting, forget it, your plants will never be able to overtake the competition.
Third: accessibility. Ideally you want a site that can’t be seen from public roads so you can sow and harvest without being seen. Or at least where you can park your car/bike without being conspicuous. This is never the case but a heap of soil next to a busy road where lots of people walk by is obviously not the best site.
At last continuity: you can have a perfect dark brown heap of loamy sandy soil, tucked away behind a hedge, with a suitable parking space near and no visible other weeds. But if that heap of earth gets bulldozer-ed a week before harvest, it is worth nothing. No one can see into the future but there are some things that can be said. The longer the time till harvest the bigger the chance it will be bulldozered or moved. Some sites like earth sound barriers are constructed to stay where they are. So these are the best. A new motorway that is due to open mid June will probably be tidied up before you can haul in your harvest.
Where can I find good guerrilla site?
The answer to this one goes hand in hand with the preceding Q. Two possible guerrilla site were mentioned: earthen sound barriers and new motorways. Others are: new housing developments, dump sites for garbage, recent landslides, demolition sites, open air mining, etc.
Use you imagination and always keep yours eyes open for possible sites. Sometimes a heap of perfect soil just presents itself on a Sunday afternoon while driving to work or a family get-together. Keep a bag of seeds under your car seat for such occasions.
When you have found a possible site ask yourself the following questions: Is this soil lose enough? Is it not to acidic (do I see peat or boggy earth)? Is this soil maiden, ie no other plants already sprouting/growing here? Can I come and go without arousing suspicions? And will this site still be here next summer (will it be left alone)? If all answers are “YES” you have a prime guerrilla spot.
But remember: this is all theory. Often I will just take my chances and sow sites that are far less than perfect. The real wisdom on site selection is to sow as many different sites as possible. In the end it comes down to statistics: about one in five sites yield a decent amount of poppies. So to guaranty a good harvest one would need to sow at least ten to twenty sites.
A last thought on this: don’t over do it. Stay under radar! Once a friend of mine did a large urban development site. He spread about two kilo’s of seeds in one night over about one square kilometre. The constructor noticed all these strange plants popping everywhere. After some investigation he learned those were opium plants and ordered a worker to mow all those bluish green plants. Talking about killing fields….
When do I sow?
When you can. Then plants themselves spread their seeds at the end of summer. But seeds spread in early April will sprout within a week or so and will be flowering in 90 days. So you can sow the whole year round.
Sowing early, i.e. about October, will give you plants a head start. But an increased chance of getting bulldozered before harvest.
Sowing late, i.e. about February, means more competition for other weeds, but a better chance you plot be still be around next July.
I sow from September till April if only to spread my chances.
Do I need to tend the growing plants?
No. Nothing what so ever. They thrive on neglect, making them perfect candidates for guerilla farming.
It might be wise to check you sites somewhere mid May. Just to see which of your plots do well, and which do not. Take note of local differences like north or south facing, special soil conditions etc. Keep learning.
How and when do I harvest?
Don’t go slicing your pods. It is THE give-away that something illegal is going on. Keep them whole.
If you live in a dry climate you can wait till the plants dry out in the field. This saves you the trouble of having to artificially dry them. Rain is BAD. Remember this. Most alkaloids in our pods are in a meconate salt which is very water soluble. Rain will wash out at significant part of your goodies. My country is pretty wet and rainy. So field drying is not an option.
What I do is wait till the crown turns up and the pod color changes from green to a more bluish hue. This happens around two weeks after the petals fall off. The pods are snapped off at the knob and collected in buckets, which are emptied in garbage bags. If you have not too many to harvest you can always harvest with a little stem attached to the pods. This will help with the excuse of you collecting wild flowers. Pods that are harvested at this stage tend to be slightly more potent than field dried pods.
Sunday mornings are very good for harvesting for obvious reasons: no people around. Also expect to lose a few plants to other people harvesting wild flowers. Every year I find plants with the pods snapped off, especially on those sites with easy access. People walking their dog see them and decide to pick a nice bouquet for the wife. This is good karma so don’t be bothered about this. Still, it is another factor to think about when deciding on a site.
How do I preserve the harvest?
If you have one or two buckets of pods harvested, just spread them on a newspaper in warm room with a fan blowing over them. Turn them daily and they will be dry in a week. When harvested with stalks attached you might want to hang them in bundles from the ceiling.
You could also put them in the freezer. This will keep them “good” for a long time and you can surprise your friends with a “fresh” poppy shake at Christmas.
Thirdly you might want to make an extract. Ab’s iceolator tek works quite well or my Laudanum recipe can be used.
But what if you had a killer-harvest of tens of thousands of pods? One thing is certain, if you can’t get them dry-ish in a week or so you will end up with a slimy, moldy stinking mess to remind you of what could have been..
I use forced cold air to get the moisture from the outside of the pods. This takes a day or two. See my thread on drying techniques for a diagram of my garbage bag dryer. After that the semi dry pods are dumped in a big crate. This crate has a raised wire mesh floor in which warm, dry air is blown. This will get them dry in a week or so.
Whatever technique you chose, check on you pods often and regularly.
A final note:
Here are some photo’s of potential free-farming sites I spotted the last few weeks, although the last few are older ones. They show fairly well the kinds of sites we get here in Holland. And some pics of the results.
You personal landscapes and soil conditions might differ enormously but the principles of lose virgin soil with easy access, apply everywhere. Good luck to you all!
Fogle