Monday Bouquets: Halloween Flowers

The sunflowers may be gone, but I haven't stopped gathering plants for the table arrangement yet. Even though Cubby's first comment upon seeing this week's bouquet was, "They look like Halloween flowers."

He had a point.

What you're looking at there is sunflower seed heads and kochia. Kochia is a terrible weed that I battle every summer in the garden. It turns that cool purple color in the fall, though, so it's nice that I can find a use for it.* 

The small yellow flowers are a single sweet clover plant I found blooming. I guess they'll do that up until the first freeze. 

I found a better source of yellow for the week's second arrangement: the fruits of the silver nightshade that featured so prominently in the early summer arrangements.

Silver nightshade is related to tomatoes, and their fruits do indeed look like small yellow tomatoes. Highly poisonous, though.

Fun fact for you: Rafael told us that the fruits of the silver nightshade were used when he was a boy to separate milk for cheesemaking, like a rennet substitute. Not sure how that works with the whole poisonous thing--maybe the toxins drain out with the whey?--but I found a very scholarly sounding medical article that confirms it. It was traditional among the Pima tribe. And apparently among the Spanish people in our county.

Just a little trivia for you.

I hope you have a lovely Monday, with or without Halloween flowers.

*The other use for it is that the animals love it as forage. But since they also love my lettuce and peas, I can't use them for weed control in my garden.