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Welcome

August 27th, 2013

This year I have a few welcome guests in the main garden out back. There’s a beautiful row of sunflowers. They are certainly very welcome, most likely deposited there from some seed that I fed to the pigs.
Sunny Volunteers 1
Sunny Volunteers 4
Sunny Volunteers 2
Sunny Volunteers 3
Hopefully in the coming years I’ll have space to plant a few rows of these beauties. They’re such happy flowers, they look especially happy in the evening with the sun setting behind them. The nice thing is that these lovelies will also provide seeds for our chickens, that is if the squirrels don’t find them first!

Do you grow sunflowers in your garden?

19 Comments to “Welcome”
  1. Jennifer Fisk on August 27, 2013 at 6:41 am

    Not intentionally but I have some volunteers from the bird feeder. The Juncos seem to be eating the seeds right out of the head.

    Reply to Jennifer Fisk's comment

  2. Lisa Sewell on August 27, 2013 at 7:25 am

    We grow them so that our pole beans will climb them. A couple of Russian Mammoth sunflower seeds are planted in the middle of a circle of beans. When the flowers have blossomed their stems are huge and fluffy with bean leaves! Love your photographs!

    Reply to Lisa Sewell's comment

    • Myra S. on August 27, 2013 at 11:32 am

      What a great idea! We’ll have to try that next year.

      Reply to Myra S.'s comment

  3. Joan on August 27, 2013 at 8:01 am

    Always a little row, except for this year I didn’t get around to planting any. Luckily a few volunteers came up anyway!

    Reply to Joan's comment

  4. Chris on August 27, 2013 at 8:06 am

    I have a small raised bed garden and I plant a sunflower seed in all four corners of my plots. I love to see how tall the sunflowers grow and how big they get from a tiny seed. They make me happy. Beautiful.

    Reply to Chris's comment

  5. Mich on August 27, 2013 at 8:31 am

    Yes I have some sunflowers but mine are a red variety, just about to flower :)

    Reply to Mich's comment

  6. Nebraska Dave on August 27, 2013 at 8:32 am

    Susy, I tried. My sunflowers were gobbled up from some wild animal (Nebraska Phil the groundhog I think). They were replanted and eaten again. However, I did get a huge patch of wild sunflowers in the thicket of weeds just outside the boundary of my property so my sunflower enjoyment came from the wild this year.

    Have a great sunflower day.

    Reply to Nebraska Dave's comment

    • Susy on August 27, 2013 at 9:15 am

      Back in Ohio I had crows that would eat the sunflower seeds as soon as they emerged. I’d end up with a few volunteers from the bird seed, but none of the ones I ever planted made it to flowering.

      Reply to Susy's comment

  7. Misti on August 27, 2013 at 9:07 am

    I didn’t grow any this year but I did grow tithonia, aka: Mexican sunflower. You should try it sometime, though I wonder if your growing season is long enough for it? Worth an experiment at least. Loved growing it this year that’s for certain!

    Reply to Misti's comment

    • Susy on August 27, 2013 at 9:16 am

      Our season is long enough for it. This year I decided annual flowers were beyond the amount of time and space I had for seed starting, all seeding time/space went for edible crops. In the coming years I plan on having a lot more annual flowers for the pollinators.

      Reply to Susy's comment

  8. Greg on August 27, 2013 at 9:22 am

    Just let Brian take care of those squirrels! :)

    Reply to Greg's comment

    • Greg on August 27, 2013 at 9:22 am

      Target practice!

      Reply to Greg's comment

  9. amy on August 27, 2013 at 12:54 pm

    I don’t but the birds do:)

    Reply to amy's comment

  10. laura on August 27, 2013 at 2:35 pm

    my grandfather always grew the biggest sunflowers so i plant them in my garden every year. they didn’t grow as well this year as i’d hoped, but maybe next year will be better.
    blessings
    ~*~

    Reply to laura's comment

  11. Marby on August 27, 2013 at 2:36 pm

    Beautiful photos. Sunflowers always look happy.

    I grow them each year and hang the dried seedheads from posts for the small birds during winter.

    Reply to Marby's comment

  12. judym on August 27, 2013 at 6:06 pm

    We have had volunteers from time to time. They are such a beautiful surprise. One year we planted some of the giant sunflowers at each end of our garden rows. they were majestic! The birds and other little critters loved them. Have gotten some terrific photos of bees, birds, and other small creatures enjoying them. Next year we want to plant a whole “field” of them – for our chickens, our next pig and of course for the active wildlife we have around here. We greatly appreciate your photographs on the subject (and on others, of course)!!

    Reply to judym's comment

  13. AmyS on August 27, 2013 at 11:51 pm

    every year we plant Goliath Mammoths and save them for the birds this winter. The squirrels also eat what’s leftover too.

    Reply to AmyS's comment

  14. Colleen on August 28, 2013 at 11:32 am

    Yes, sunflowers are one flower I always plant. Depending on the weather and birds, it may take two plantings, but we always have enough to enjoy bouquets in the house and share seeds with birds. The bees love them too. They are such a happy flower.

    Reply to Colleen's comment

  15. Stephanie on August 30, 2013 at 1:01 am

    Beautiful! Some of my favorite harvests have been from happy accidents, like when my in-laws stopped by and we bought a watermelon and thoroughly enjoyed it while sitting on the front porch. Some of the “discarded” seeds grew into the sweetest watermelons :o)

    Reply to Stephanie's comment

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This is a daily journal of my efforts to cultivate a more simple life, through local eating, gardening and so many other things. We used to live in a small suburban neighborhood Ohio but moved to 153 acres in Liberty, Maine in 2012.

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