Opium Poppy Off with Their Heads! Europeana Rain is coming so its time to harvest the ripe poppy seeds. Once the poppy pods have dried and the interior seeds matured to a rich brown or black, I clip the tops from the pods and pour out the Dried poppy pods, one of my favorite dried elements for everlasting bouquets. Opium poppies (Papaver somniferum) growing like weeds on my allotment very excited to forage the seeds. I have sunflowers and pumpkins too so we should get a good seed mix come