Chicory Cichorium Intybus Seeds 2000+ Blue Dandelion Beautiful honey bee flower!

Description: Welcome to our farmstead store!What Is Chicory?Chicory is a perennial herb that has proven so useful and persistent that we humans have brought it with us practically whenever we go.That’s why you can find it today pretty much everywhere, from Europe to North America, throughout the UK, China, Southeast Asia, southern Africa, and Australia.It has manage to naturalize wherever it can get its roots into disturbed soil.Humans have been cultivating this plant for centuries, and in that time they have managed to turn the basic wild plant into leafier versions like Belgian endive, curly endive, sugarloaf, and radicchio.Confusingly, you may have even heard endive called chicory in the US. These leafy vegetables are subspecies of C. intybus, and they’ll be covered in a separate growing guide.You’ll also hear the plant referred to by various common names including blue sailor, coffeeweed, blue cornflower, Italian dandelion, succory, or wild endive (not to be confused with Cichorium pumilum, which is also called wild endive).To make things easy, when we talk about chicory in this article, we’re talking about Cichorium intybus – the original species plant that is grown as a flowering herb.It’s a member of the aster or daisy family, Asteraceae, and is closely related to that other underappreciated “weed,” the dandelion.Chicory grows as a self-seeding perennial in USDA Hardiness Zones 3 to 10.The stems are stiff and hairy, reaching up to three feet tall. The leaves are sparsely spaced and heavily toothed, with larger, fuller leaves at the bottom of the plant.The flowers are violet blue, ranging from light to dark, depending on their age and level of sun exposure. You may even spot white flowers, though they are rare. The plant blooms from June through September.Each of the flower heads is actually an inflorescence, or group of flowers. Each “petal” is really five fused petals that form a floret.One of the things I find most fascinating about plants in the aster family is that they have flowers that open and close according to the movement of the sun.The flower heads open before sunrise and start to close by the afternoon. They typically start out a dark blue-lavender and seem to reflect the shift in the sky, as both the flower and the sky lighten throughout the day.White pollen gathers at the tips of the stamens throughout the early morning, when bees and butterflies will visit.Each individual flower will never open again, and within a day or two, the flowers that have already bloomed will fall off.Later in the year, flowers that have been pollinated develop fruits that fall to the ground, and the seeds contained inside will germinate, starting the cycle all over again.Like its buddy the dandelion, chicory has a long taproot, and both the leaves and root are nutritious and edible.Cultivation and HistoryC. intybus originated in Eurasia, primarily in the Mediterranean and northwest Asia. It’s a plant that has laced itself into the fabric of human history.It has been used in traditional Chinese medicine, and the ancient Roman poet Horace spoke about eating chicory regularly.In the Bible, the Book of Exodus mentions bitter herbs as one of the foods to be consumed for Passover.The Talmud later expanded on the types of herbs that were to be used, and one of these bitter herbs mentioned specifically is ulshin, or chicory.Thanks to its blooming habit, the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus included chicory in his “floral clock.”This clock was an imagined garden filled with flowers that bloom at different times of day to indicate the time.Chicory marked the four o’clock hour in the early morning in Sweden, because the flower heads begin to open just before sunrise there, and close again in the afternoon.Chicory root became popular in the 1800s in Europe and was carried to other parts of the world.It gained popularity in New Orleans after blockades during the American Civil War prevented coffee from reaching the city’s port. It remains a common coffee additive today.When the British sought to colonize India, they brought the root along, and it gradually gained prominence as a brewed hot drink there.Chicory is not only cultivated for human consumption, but as fodder for livestock as well.It has been used in Europe to feed animals for centuries, and more recently in the US, because it’s nutritious and drought tolerant.PropagationIf you plan to harvest the roots, make sure your soil is friable and loose.Otherwise, prepare the soil by adding a bit of sand to improve drainage if you have heavy clay.While chicory isn’t a demanding plant, as evidenced by its ability to thrive along neglected roadsides, you should test your soil and work in some well-rotted compost if it lacks any of the major nutrients.If you want to encourage leafing, particularly if you’re growing it for fodder, give the plants a nitrogen-heavy fertilizer at seeding time, unless your soil is already high in nitrogen.From SeedStarting from seed is an easy and affordable way to grow a lot of plants. It takes little work and you’ll be rewarded with a large harvest.Direct sow seeds in the early spring, as soon as the soil is workable. Don’t bury the seeds too deep – 1/4 inch is plenty.Keep the soil moist but not wet until the seedlings emerge, which will usually take two to three weeks.Seeds will germinate in a broad range of temperatures (remember, these plants are the definition of unfussy).While temperatures between 40 to 85°F will get the job done, 70°F is the sweet spot for germination.Once the plants pop up, thin them to one foot apart.You can plant a second batch in midsummer if temperatures won’t go above 85°F.How to GrowTry to give C. intybus full sun. It can handle part shade, but it does best with six hours or more of sunlight per day.Fertile, well-draining soil will give you the leafiest growth and healthiest roots. Aim for a pH somewhere between 5.5 and 7.0.The plants prefer to have evenly moist soil, so make sure they’re getting at least an inch of water a week. The soil shouldn’t be allowed to dry out beyond the top inch.Chicory prefers disturbed areas like roadsides, pastures, landfills, and abandoned land.The seeds aren’t dispersed by the wind like those of the dandelion, so it won’t pop up in random spots unless a bird carries the seed.That means you won’t need to fight its spread as much as, say, you would with mint, but keep an eye out and pull up any volunteers that sprout where you don’t want them.You’ll need to dig up chicory in the same way you would dig up dandelions if you want to remove it from an area, using a long dandelion weeder to pull the entire taproot out of the soil.Snip the blossoms when they are finished blooming to prevent reseeding.Growing TipsPlant in full sun in well-draining soilKeep the soil moist but not wetControl spread by pulling volunteers

Price: 19.99 USD

Location: Bruce Mines, Ontario

End Time: 2025-01-17T01:23:01.000Z

Shipping Cost: 10 USD