The Sunflower Garden!

As part of the 4-H Heritage Garden Club, we planted a sunflower garden this year. It took us quite a while to figure out where we were going to put it seeing as the folks who lived here before us planted things everywhere and with us not being terribly interested in growing things, well we've let it all grow without moving it or taking it out. We had chosen a spot next to our house on the western wall and when we began researching sunflowers, we determined that although it is tempting to grow them next to a house, it's not a good idea. Who knew? One thing for sure, is that sunflowers need a lot of sunlight so we chose to plant them around our mail box. We did the planting at Father's Day and with a short growing season as it is, we chose to just see how much they grow by the end of the season. Planting time isn't until Memorial Day here and there was a frost warning after that date, so we aren't too far behind.

E12 was responsible for the math on the project. He determined how much room we need for the flowers and from that how much ground needed to be turned over. They marked it with yarn and Dan did the digging for us.

Raking the plot and removing the rocks

Removing the sod and putting it in the "bush fort" in the back yard

The kids designed the little garden and mapped out where each type of seed was to be planted.

Finally, it's time to plant the seeds.

The garden map tells us where each sunflower was planted and what species it is. E12 worked on a key for us. Here are some of the resources we used a long the way:

• Sunflower Guide
• Roots, Shoots, Buckets, and Boots
• The Ultimate Sunflower Book- we won this as a prize for being one of the first to sign up for this year's heritage garden club

Since these photos were taken, the plants have grown quite a bit. I have an update post coming soon and they are even bigger now. Only we are minus one plant- not sure what happened there, but I think a bunny may be the culprit. We are planning to plant another seed in it's place though it will always be behind the others. In the next update, I'll share which type of sunflowers we planted. Stay tuned!