Sunflowers: Planting, Growth, and harvesting Seeds

Check out my new video about how to plant sunflowers, harvest their seeds, and the growth (when to plant for the best results)!

Click here to watch the video on youtube 

How to grow: SUNFLOWERS

This year we've decided to grow sunflowers for many of reasons including the tasty seeds and their beautify. We didnt do any research on them and just kind of figured it out ourselves. This is what we found out:

WHEN TO START SEEDS:

When I think of sunflowers I think of SUMMER flowers, but it all reality they are a SPRING flower.

Starting in January you will want to put the NON-GMO & ORGANIC sunflower seeds in pots and keep them inside...

They will get really tall and it will seem a bit of an over-kill.. but thats okay!

PLANTING THE SEEDS: 

After the last frost transfer your baby sunflowers into the plants (this should be around February if living in Florida) .. remember they like full sun!

** Sunflowers love the sun! Plant them in full sun for the best results... however if unable too plant them in the most sunny spot of your yard and there "heads" will chase the sun... Pretty cool!**

GROWING THE PLANTS:

Sunflowers are FAST growers.. you can see changes overnight!

Water the plants at least twice a week or as you see fit with the temperature rising (in FL its been UBBER hot so we've been watering everyday)

The plants will keep growing and growing until the temperature is just right. It will be about 2-3 months. In the middle of MAY.. every sunflower no matter how big or little will bloom its flower.

FLOWERS AND SEEDS:

The flowers will last a few weeks

** THE FLOWERS COME IN ALL DIFFERENT SHAPES AND SIZES.. INTERESTING TO SEE**

When the flowers start to look like they are crying is when they are getting ready to drop their seeds. (their seeds are developing)

You can tell when a sunflower is ready to be harvested for seeds by 

1. when the whole stem turns yellow

2.The seeds start to darken

3. bird start to steal seeds (my fave! LOL)

PESTS:

The BIGGEST pest we have with sunflowers are DEER!!!
They will eat all the leaves off of the sunflower.. BUT if it is early enough in the season sunflowers WILL grow a second head.... (if its late in the season, you just lost a plant :( )

The bug that you have to look out for is the STINK BUG

Though, they wont harm your plant or do damage... they can make it look ugly /:

ADVANTAGES TO HAVING SUNFLOWERS IN YOUR YARD:

I just HAD to put this in there!!!

EVERY SINGLE PEST AND BAD BUG IN YOUR! GARDEN ARE ATTRACTED TO SUNFLOWERS... meaninggggg.... THEY WILL LEAVE YOUR CROPS ALONE AND GO TO YOUR SUNFLOWERS...andddd... IT DOESNT HURT YOUR SUNFLOWER!!

PICTURES:

**Interesting fact: our largest sunflower was 11 ft 3 in tall! and the largest sunflower recorded was  27 ft tall!**

INTRODUCTION TO LAWN WEEDS: Naming your weeds

Good evening! Its been horribly rainy the last few days in the Sunshine State! We've been bored... We decided to start figuring out what some of our lawn weeds were called...
AND WE ARE HERE TO HELP YOU FIGURE THEM OUT TOO!! :)
Here are some pictures and the common names of the weeds :)

MATCHWEED: Little white flowers with purple insides.

HAWKSBEARD: Tall yellow flowers

LARGE CRABGRASS: Grass that starts a central point and spreads outwards in all different directions.

FLEABANE: they look like wispy purple and white mini daisies.

SPINY SAWTHISTLE: **gloves when removing weed.. very spiky** but they have yellow flowers on the top

WHITEHEAD BROOM: long oval leaves with little white flowers.. get tall and inbetween plants!

PEPPERWEED: a stalk of white puffy flowers

PUSLEY: inbetween the leaves grows mini white flowers **not shown here**

GLOBE SEDGE: exactly like picture but the bottoms look like a lighter shade of grass.

VIRGINIA CREEPER: a vine 

DANDELION: starts off as a yellow flower... then opens up to those WONDERFUL *cough not cough* seeds that children like to make wishes on

PLANTAIN

THESE ARE JUST A FEW OF OUR WEEDS IN OUR YARD.

STAY TUNED FOR MORE WEEDS--- AND--- HOW YOU CAN GET RID OF THESES WEEDS!!

FAIRY CONTEST

Hello Everybody! I have a fun little contest 

here  

To participate; create a fairy chair to seat a fairy 6 inches tall. You can use any house hold or outside objects.
REMEMBER fairy's are scavengers... they find trash and turn it into treasure. they like sparkly, shiny, tacky things. They are NOT perfectionists... they kind of just throw things together.. So anything you find can work!REMEMBER fairy's are scavengers... they find trash and turn it into treasure. they like sparkly, shiny, tacky things. They are NOT perfectionists... they kind of just throw things together.. So anything you find can work!

Rules: No welding. Must sit fairy that is 6 inches tall. Must be hand made (going out any buying a fairy chair is no fun!!!)
ON SUNDAY At 12:00 Post a pic of your chair to my facebook page abbys acres gardening 







GOOD LUCK CREATING!!! 

THE MAGIC FLY-AWAY BAG

Putting pennies in a bag with water keeps flies away????
Ok, Ok, I know this sounds crazy.... BUT IT WORKS LEMME TELL YA! When put at an entrance.. It keeps those dumb flies away!!

What you'll need: 

• A sandwich Baggie
• 5 Pennies (dull, shiny, whichever!)
• Some water
• Some string (length depending on where it goes)

Instructions:

1. Open Sandwich baggie and poor water in until its half way full.
   
2. Place 5 pennies into the baggie
   
3. CLOSE the baggie and let allllllll the air out. Then tie your string around the baggie tightly so it doesn't come off.
   
4. Hang the baggie in entrance of porch/sitting area..Like so:
   
   
   
   

WHY DOES THIS WORK?!?!?!?!?!
This Magical baggie works by confusing the fly. Flies have horrible eye sight, so when flying towards this bag they don't see water, actually they don't know what they see, so the flies assume its a predator they fly away...
...ultimately leaving you alone!
COOL, HUH?! :)

A little bit about me... Abby!

Hello, World!!

My name is Abby. This is my second year gardening, and oooooooh boy do I love it. I garden with my step-dad Kyle and he is the one who got me obsessed (you'll hear about him quite a bit)

The cool thing about my garden (AND THIS BLOG) is that we garden on a budget... We don't spend bukkos amount of money for our garden. We turn trash into treasure, seed into plant, and nothing into something. Hopefully I will teach you on how YOU can be an efficient, frugal gardener and maybe you'll decide to try it yourself :)

SOME THINGS FROM OUR GARDEN:

• Zucchini
• Beans
• Cucumbers
• Peppers
• Tomatoes
• Black Berries

And an assortment of flowers inlcluding but not limited too:

• Sunflowers
• Gladiolas
• Lantana
• Marigolds (GALORE)
• Daisy's
• Zinnias
• Wildflowers
• 4 o'clocks

And the list goes on.........

I welcome everybody to my blog! 

xoxo Abby