A rather large field across the way from me is growing sunflowers. I guess they make enough money from them to make it worth using this prime field. It sure is pretty right now.





Every Bloom was facing East.

I wonder if they're going to make sunflower seeds!
BBQ flavored ones!

This sign was next to it.

That field sure is pretty. If your going to grow crops I guess that would be about the most pretty to grow.

Driving north on a highway I often use, I noticed a field of sunflowers for the first time. That area has always grown corn, sorghum or cotton. It will be interesting to see whether it is the start of a trend.

We go through about 50# of sunflower seeds in the winter months. A lot of different birds love them, especially in cold weather.

TBGDN said:We go through about 50# of sunflower seeds in the winter months. A lot of different birds love them, especially in cold weather.

Oh yes many birds are attracted to those sunflower seeds. And I get the Gold Finches come around and eat the seeds right out of the sunflowers that I grow. So cute to see them hanging on the flower head and picking out seed.

Eliminate the middle man!

Yup, they sure love them, When I was a kid, my neighbor used to have a bird feeder, and he had the wild Chic a dee's taking the seeds out of his mouth. He'd put his finger up near this mouth for them to perch on and they would fly onto his finger and take the seed from between his lips and fly off.

They are beautiful! Especially en masse like that! I plan on growing them for my chickens.

Thanks, They are starting to look a bit sad now as we need rain and the soil is very sandy here.

Ok, I have seen a field of these before as well. My question is, because of the sheer density of plants, do you THINK that some can survive the winter, and essentially making it an ever lasting field?

Also, I guess the stalks are good for cows and gosts, so we feed depleted stalks for them.
You would be surprised, on what an entire ecosystem can look like on a single plant, beauty...o by the way, I'm going for the world record sunflower this year (first year trying)

I'll have videos up on my youtube channel

I think they are an annual plant, and won't survive a winter. If any seeds survived, they will come up the next spring, but the birds like them too much.

tveguy3 said:I think they are an annual plant, and won't survive a winter. If any seeds survived, they will come up the next spring, but the birds like them too much.

The birds do usually manage to leave a few seeds to let the sunflowers self seed.

Century Sun Oil is an organic sunflower oil company. Yay!!!

More and more people are trying to grow sunflowers for oil in Minn.
I bought some recently in a grocery store, it came from Eastern Europe.

There's a dairy with its own ice cream store, an hour from here. It looks like quite a family destination for that area, as you can imagine. And they had a big field of sunflowers by the parking area, makes for a pretty sight.

I usually have a few volunteer sunflowers. Last year all the seeds from couple heads I saved seemed to be all empty shells. Can't figure that out.

Sallyg

Would that farm and ice cream store be called South Mountain Creamery ?

Larry, I have read about South Mountain but never been to there. Thanks for reminding me, I would like to see the calves. This was Rocky Point creamery, near Point of Rocks.
I guess a sunflower field next to a 'family atttraction' is a popular idea.

Sunflowers are lovely! We have a couple local growers that have a kids day with the bouncy blowups. You can take pictures and buy a stem for a dollar.