Phacelia tanacetifolia organic seeds - Fiddleneck

Phacelia tanacetifolia Blue Organic is one of the best allies of the organic vegetable garden: a fast-growing, nectar-rich green manure, capable of enriching the soil, limiting weeds, and attracting a host of pollinators and beneficial insects. Its very decorative blue flowers also add a rustic touch to the garden. It is undemanding, thrives in ordinary, well-drained soil, tolerates drought fairly well, and is easy to sow between vegetable crops or after harvests. It can be seamlessly integrated into vegetable garden rotations, breaking the cycles of many diseases and pests.

An annual species of the Boraginaceae family, phacelia is native to the southwestern United States (California, Arizona, Nevada) and northern Mexico, where it is found in dry, sunny, often disturbed environments. It has become widely naturalised in temperate regions of Europe. It is an annual with a very fast cycle: sown in spring or late summer, it completes its development in 3 to 4 months, making it ideal for catch cropping.
The plant forms a clump 50 to 80 cm tall in the vegetable garden. Its light green foliage is deeply divided into numerous fine segments, similar to tansy. This dense foliage quickly covers the ground and shades out weeds. The root system is highly developed for an annual: a main root goes deep, accompanied by a dense network of root hairs that loosens the soil, improves its structure, and promotes water infiltration. The characteristic inflorescences appear as coiled cymes, which gradually unroll, covered with small, bell-shaped flowers in shades of lavender-blue to violet-blue. Flowering typically occurs 6 to 8 weeks after sowing and can last for several weeks, from late spring to early autumn. Each flower offers abundant nectar, loved by bees, hoverflies, and many other beneficial insects. After flowering, small capsules form, containing a few black seeds; if the plant is allowed to go to seed, it can self-sow spontaneously.
Frost-sensitive, phacelia can nevertheless tolerate temperatures down to –5 °C, allowing it to be used as an autumn green manure: either leave it to freeze to form a natural mulch, or mow it before winter to use as mulch or lightly dig it in.

Generally, four types of plots should be established, which are not necessarily grouped:

• plot 1 accommodates leafy greens

• plot 2 accommodates fruiting vegetables

• plot 3 accommodates grain vegetables

• plot 4 accommodates root vegetables

Then rotate from one year to the next, where leafy greens give way to root vegetables, and so on. To allow the soil to rest and recover, a fifth step is increasingly added: that of green manure such as Phacelia. 
This undemanding plant enhances the most barren, sunny soils. Its curled inflorescence with small blue flowers is very attractive. Its deeply divided foliage forms light clumps over 1m tall.