Anyone who drives past the farm will notice a proud stand of sunflowers in the Mama Wanda garden patch this year, keeping guard over our winter squash patch.
Many of those sunflowers started life as volunteers in our high tunnel. At one point in time, several years ago, someone (me) thought it was a good idea to plant a few sunflowers in the high tunnel just to add some late-season color. I carefully selected the seeds, reeled in by names such as Lemon Queen, Autumn Sunset. Santa Fe Sunrise, Velvet Queen and the exotic Soraya.
They grew well, some reaching well above the tomato lines. They were beautiful and colorful, full of bees and a treat for the birds who came inn through the open sides and ends of the tunnel.
And in the spring of the next year, hundreds of little sunflower plants sprouted all through the tunnel. And thus began the annual sunflower transplanting. They go at the end of the corn rows and in the squash patch and at the ends of the potato rows. They go in the flower beds and sometimes next to the kitchen door.
The thing is - they don't seed themselves outdoors, likely because it's just too cold to keep the seeds viable. But in the protected high tunnel environment, it's like a sunflower nursery.
I vowed this year to remove nearly all the sunflower plants that volunteered - thus the squash patch sunnies! Some went to my mother's garden downtown. But I wasn't nearly ruthless enough for the high tunnel is once again a sunflower seed nursery!
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| front porch bouquet of sunflowers catching the August sunrise |
1 comment:
The sunflowers and all their admirers thank you. They’re so beautiful with their round faces.
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