Sunflowers

A few weeks ago I received an email from an associate at Keep Denton Beautiful about The Great Sunflower Project. This is a project designed for research into learning more about bees and where and when they are at work pollinating our gardens. To help with this research, this project sent out sunflower seeds.

Whether your garden contains vegetables, fuit trees, flowers, or even herbs, many of these plants must be pollinated before a fruit forms. And as the headlines for the last year have made clear, bees are under threat.

Very little is known about bee activity in home and community gardens and their surrounding environments, but they are a crucial link in the survival of native habitats and local produce, not to mention our beautiful urban gardens. Our local pollinator populations require our understanding & protection, and to answer that call this project was created to learn more about our local pollinators.

The seeds are for Helianthus annus. The flower grows to about 3-4 inches across on 3-foot tall plants.

I didn't really have a place set up for these seeds so I took the cinder blocks that I had in the corner of the house and set up a small garden against the back wall of the house. I've been getting prepared for an organic backyard farm and this is a perfect first step.

I planted the seeds and while I was at it, I also planted a tomato, jalapeno, and a bell pepper. Then in the holes of the cinder blocks I planted some alyssum, basil that was growing from seeds from last year's plant, and marigold.

I'm quite pleased with it. I'm looking forward to that first seedling coming up and am hoping for a bumper crop of bees to visit my little farm.