So I posted about two months ago about growing sunflowers the coast. Ok, I churned up some misc. dirt stuff, bark chips, pine needles in with the sand that turned into my garden area. Threw on about 3 inches of potting soil, and planted a bunch of sunflower seeds, radishes seeds, and jalepeno seeds. The radishes and sunflowers are taking off like crazy, growing almost too fast I think. Is there anything a guy can do to ensure that the sunflowers will keep on trucking? Ways to keep them healthy? Recommended sunflower fertilizers/plant food? Not worried about the radishes as those are about to be plucked from the ground.
I'm an organic farmer, mostly growing cooking herbs, tomatoes, peppers, and shiitake mushrooms. I have grown many sunflowers too, for bird feeding etc. I don't know for sure about there, but here, I do nothing. I plant them in spare spots with LOTS of sun and then just enjoy. There's an old gardner's saying that I like, "May the bugs in your garden eat only the weeds."
Yup, after some trial and error, I decided leaving 'em alone is probably the best thing to do. I thinned them out a littler earlier. Tried replanting the ones I pulled out and they killed over. Not a loss though. The ones left look better. Can't wait until they start to flower. That'll be too cool
Mine are like 3 ft tall right now. I had them as seedlings and put them in the ground about a month ago, and they just shot up. Unfortunately, I also have morning glories growing in the same area, and I have to constantly unwrap the morning glories from around my other plants. I don't have the heart to kill them because my daughter loves the flowers (so do I), but they are a hassle to try to direct towards the fence that I want them to grow around.
Now that the sunflowers are off to a good start, you might want to try letting a few of the vines grow up them. I've known folks who were short on space who grew their peas and beans by letting them climb sunflowers. I've done it also with honeysuckle, looks good. The key is that they're off to a good start.
I had heard that the best way to get rid of unwanted morning glories is to cut the vine and spray some ammonia into the open stem. OUCH! I haven't tried it yet, but I have the flowerbed on the side of the house to practice on! Anyway... I have a QUESTION about SUNFLOWERS: Are you supposed to cut or snap the dead flowers off of the sunflower stalk? Ever since I transplanted the approx. 18" sunflowers from their pots to the ground, they look HORRIBLE! The other plants around them are thriving & it doesn't make any sense! :sunglasse
chicken shit a couple thymes a mounth i buy a 40lb bag of chicken shit pour it all over the soil and give it a good watering. youd thing it stinks, but it does not. i use to have a huge barrel of chicken shit tea, and id water the garden with it. ol jean john loves it
