Sunflowers

This past school year for Mother's Day my son's first grade class planted sunflower seeds in Dixie cups!  They were about one inch tall when I got my present.  About a week later they were planted in containers and fed fertilizer, lots of it.  First used was the blue crystal like stuff, I think it is the 20-20-20. They grew taller and my hubby put in a pole and then baggie tied the plant to the pole.  As the plant got bigger the baggie tie came off and was replaced with a loose zip tie.  More fertilizer, but in the form of chicken manure, earthworm castings, or fish compost (I call it all chicken poop, worm poop, or fish guts) was used to make these beauties grow big and strong!

Our weather went from being in the ninety degrees down to mid sixty and very rainy. We needed the rain really bad! The first sunflower died.  My BBQ King thinks he can bring it back to life.  The flower head is droopy and the petals are wilted, but it has been a week and nothing!  We are now back in the heat wave of nearly ninety degrees again!  The second sunflower plant, is now thriving in the heat!

Begging for sunshine and warm weather, sounds like me!  I love summer!

Another cloudy day for the second sunflower!  This one is actually about two feet taller than the first plant!  Maybe it is 3! Still begging for sunshine!

Almost there!  The sunflower and I are enjoying the warm weather today, and yesterday!  When I got home from work I went out to water all the plants and found Miss sunflower like this!

This is leaning up against the yellow ghost pepper plant!  I think a mole or gofer was underground and knocked it over!  Or maybe it was the wind, although it wasn't windy!  I guess it will be a mystery but I like the critter idea!  I helped this beauty up and found only two peppers on the ground which I stuck into the mound of dirt by the fence, hence the critter idea!  I think he was digging his underground maze and bumped the bucket, because he was too close to the surface!

So there you have it!  Sunflowers started from a seed in a Dixie cup, planted into a container bucket can grow!  Sunflowers are an excellent way to bring bees to your garden to get the other flowering plants pollinated to grow!

Did you grow a garden this year?