Sunflower Birdfeeders

Late blooming Mexican Sunflower 10/15/08

The sunflowers that bloomed all summer at the northeast corner of our garden are way past peaked, and have collapsed into an unsightly jumble of stalks and blown-out flower heads. If you read my post earlier this year, you know we grew dozens (maybe hundreds?) of sunflowers from seeds we saved from last year's garden. And the birds gave thanks.

Now that the sunflowers are spent, I've been wanting to clear them away so that the Mexican Sunflowers that are interplanted will have a chance to do their thing before the cold weather sets in (see above, the doing of the Mexican Sunflower thing). However, the birds are still feasting like mad on the sunflower seeds from the peaked out brown sunflower stalks.

Hence: creative ways to offer sunflower seeds to the birds.

Teepee birdfeeder


















Cucumber trellis = birdfeeder
















Hanging bird treats from a bean trellis








In other fall gardening news, the marigolds, nasturtiums, and zinnias are having a resurgence, and the there are bursts of orange, red, and yellow everywhere (below: zinnias).

September Garden Pictures...

Polyculture in the keyhole bed (dill, strawflowers, okra, eggplant, marigolds, peppers, amaranth, black beans, and sunflowers)





































































Beans growing up various sunflower stalks and drying on the vine ~ these will be dry black beans for eating all winter. Cucuzzi edible gourds are mixed in, too, and okra and butternut squash...














































Zinnias, nasturtiums, milkweed, and beans...chicory in the background.











baby okra!

ironweed & sunflowers in the background

High Harvest

Clockwise from 6:00: peppers, okra, cherry tomatoes, dill, onions, tomatoes, garlic, japanese long cucumbers, zephyr squash, beet greens and celery greens, orange cucumbers, beets, italian edible gourd, more tomatoes, and carrots.

We are experiencing massive garden overload!

Produce is pouring out of the garden faster than we can eat, preserve, and process it.

It's amazing how generous the earth is. We're trying to remember to have gratitude for all this abundance as tomatoes, cucumbers, and squash overflow out of our kitchen onto every flat surface in the house.

Anyone want some refrigerator pickles or brined veggies? Tomatoes? Help us eat this food!


A garden shot....











Meanwhile, the garden is swarming with pollinators, beneficials, and a few detrimentals (squished a spotted cucumber beetle today). Sunflowers, fennel, and ironweed are surrounded by clouds of buzzing, feeding, pollinating bugs - hurrah!

Bees enjoying a sunflower...

Christopher's Sunflowers

At the end of last summer, Christopher harvested hundreds of seeds from sunflowers -- wild sunflowers, Mexican sunflowers, and various of the ten or so cultivars that we grew last year -- and saved them all in a big mason jar over the winter to replant this spring. He planted a giant patch at the northeast corner of our main veggie garden.

Now there are sunflowers blooming to beat the band!

Here (photos above and below) are some of the blooms in the big patch that C. planted. Besides being beautiful, they're highly functional. Their roots are breaking up the soil in a spot where we'll plant vegetables next year, and once they're done blooming, they'll make great biomass for the compost pile.

AND, they attract a swarm of garden helpers. I've watched all kinds of birds and insects get very excited about the mondo patch of sunflowers. There's a bright yellow gold finch who especially seems to love them, and the bees are all over them.

We want our garden to be swarming with beneficial insects, pollinators, and birds, so setting a table of big, gold, heaping dinner plates for those of the bird and insect persuasion is a wonderful way to bring them in.

It's hard to take any of the bloom banquet away from the birds and bees, but it's just such a pleasure to bring a few inside (see below)....

I'm feeling so grateful to C. for saving sunflower seeds and planting them - especially since he's out of town for a week, at what appears to be the height of the sunflower sunburst. It warms my heart to have these sunny reminders of him around the garden and house this week!