Wild chicory, Cichorium Intybus
Chicory growing either side of a hillside footpath through the cornfields in Harlton, Cambridgeshire
Chicory is cultivated for salad leaves, chicons (blanched heads), or roots (var. sativum – baked, ground and used as a coffee substitute or food additive), but as an arable weed, in flower, they are a stunning sight!
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Every now and then I’ll pick up some coffee with chicory. It’s a staple in Louisiana, and it’s quite good. I’ve read, too, of a growing movement to grow wildflowers in strips within farm fields, as a way of providing pollination for crops as well as sustenance for the bees and other pollinators. Besides, as you say — it’s quite pretty!
I don’t think I’ve ever had coffee with chicory, although I am aware of it. My husband would surely sneer 🤣. Yes, I think the farmer did exactly that with the chicory, but he had a good eye for the setting too!
Really lovely flowers which I’ve grown in the past, and must do again. xx
Coincidentally I am growing some this year. I’d forgotten that I need to wait for a second year though 😦 . They are worth growing for the pollinators alone.
I was just reading about chicory in a gardening book from another time. COOL
Thanks Flower! I am so happy that I am growing some from seed now!
I am reading an old series of gardening books now. Wow they worked hard for their food. Whew!
We certainly take a lot for granted these days!
Wow, so many! They grow at the roadside here too, but I have never seen so many. Wonderful!
A clever farmer I think. Certainly you don’t see so many clustered together in such a dramatic way normally 🙂 . The sweep up the hillside, with the cornfields as contrast, is genius!
So they were sown deliberately then? I think it all spreads naturally here.
How common are these, do you think, Allison? I don’t think I have seen them, and we have arable fields on the doorstep here
They like our chalky soil hills here for sure. Naturally, they are usually more thinly dispersed, but I am guessing that the display is deliberate. It is stunning nevertheless.
Perhaps they prefer certain soils?