Country diary: A little garden mystery – why are the wood mice hoarding opium seeds? | Susie White

Allendale, Northumberland: My late-flowering poppies have lit up the garden, and it’s not only me who’s taken an interestThe opium poppies have now set seed, their leaves rattling like crisp packets, the vents beneath their pod lids open for the seeds to be scattered. Dotted throughout my flower borders, adding stature to the vegetable garden, Papaver somniferum is the breadseed poppy, its large, floppy petals unpredictable in colour: pale lilac, purple, pink or sometimes with fringed petals. The unexpected brings a freedom and a randomness to the garden.Those blue-grey seeds are sprinkled on bagels and bread, baked into cakes or ground as a thickener for curries, adding protein, plant fats and trace elements such as manganese. But in its unripe state this is the plant that gives opium, a two-sided drug, both medicinal and destructive as a sedative – its specific name somniferum means sleep-bringing. Continue reading...