Now's the time to get your sunflower seeds ready for a summer full of sunflower fun.
The first signs that spring is on the way are making us excited about spending more time out in the garden. I’ve already done a garden audit to see how I can make our space more child and play friendly and my daughters are really keen to grow lots of things themselves this year.
Last year we had so much fun growing sunflowers, which I think are a great beginner plant. With a small city garden like ours we have to choose our plants carefully but I think you get a lot of impact from just a few sunflower seeds and they shoot up so quickly - my girls were amazed at how tall they grew.
How to plant sunflower seeds
You can plant sunflowers straight into the soil outside in April but then you’re at the mercy of slugs and snails. I prefer to plant our seeds in pots of compost in mid-March and keep them inside or in the greenhouse to germinate. You might like to try Jen’s technique of planting them in egg shells.
You’ll start to see shoots appear within two to three weeks.
Planting out your sunflower seeds
Once your plants are 10cm to 15cm tall you can plant them out in a sunny spot in the garden.
Depending on which variety of flowers you’re growing you might need to support the stems by tying them to a cane, so they don’t flop over when the flowers open.
You can use the ideas in my free Sunflower Activities ebook to add in some science, maths, literacy and art projects as you watch your sunflowers grow.
Harvesting your sunflowers
Once you’ve enjoyed the beautiful blooms all summer, you’ll notice around September time that the flower heads start to fade. Now’s the time to harvest the seeds.
Cut the stems and tie up your seed heads for a couple of weeks to let them dry out. Then rub the flower heads to release all the seeds inside.
Save some of the seeds for planting next year. You can keep them safe in a paper envelope until next spring.
Turn the rest of the seeds into a tasty snack. Give some to the birds, either loose on the bird table or by making a seed cake. You can roast the rest to make a tasty snack for you and the children to enjoy.
Join my Sunflower Challenge
This year, over at NurtureStore, I'm very excited to be joining forces with Have a Lovely Time to launch a sunflower challenge, raising funds for Compton Hospice. If you’d like to join me you can make a donation, get your sunflower seeds from Compton Hospice and download my free Sunflower Activities ebook. Then you’ll need to start planting, because there are some great prizes to be won in the tallest sunflower competition. These include from the lovely people at the Just So festival and the team at Micro Scooters - so if you want to show off your growing skills with a chance of enjoying a great family weekend or whizzing around on a micro scooter, get in touch!
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admin
15 March, 2011
Thanks for another great post Cathy. I am itching to get out and do my garden audit, which will be very late this year due to our ongoing DIY projects taking all of my time.
We don't have a huge garden, but we did make two raised beds last year for veggies. I've bought some onions, carrots and leek seeds, and we are all ready to go as soon as we've cleared the garden and beds. We are going to plant those in trugs, and leave the beds for rhubarb, tomatoes and potatoes.
We also bought sunflower seeds for the first time this year, and I love the idea of planting them in eggshells - it's genius!
Happy planting,
Leigh
Ready for Ten Team
mum
18 March, 2011
That all sounds very exciting Leigh. I do love this time of year when you can feel spring in the air and you can start making plans. We're growing potatoes in a dustbin this year!
dad
22 March, 2011
I use origami pots made out of newspaper to start my sunflowers off. That way when they are ready to go out I just plant them directly into the ground and the newspaper disintegrates nicely.
mum
22 March, 2011
That's a good idea Dan and great recycling too. We tend to keep ours in the pots until they're quite sturdy though - as one year the slugs felled every single plant as soon as we planted them out - so I've found the roots start to push through the pots before we're ready to plant them. I guess we should just make the newspaper pots bigger to solve that though.