| When we see that
most of the blooms within the sunflower head have been pollinated, we protect the seed
heads with netting. Once all of the seeds in a head have set, we cut the seed heads
for drying in our greenhouse. Of course, this causes
quite a commotion in the goldfinch population on our farm since they think THEY should be
able to have the large seed heads. Guess there are critics everywhere you go. |
One of our sunflower fields in late August with netting draped over the
ripening seed heads
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Birds
Whole sunflower seed heads are a natural way to help the birds make it
through the winter. Fill the empty seed heads with peanut butter for continued
nourishment. In addition to wild birds, sunflower seed heads are appreciated
by all sorts of captive birds. Why not treat
your parakeet or cockatiel to a tasty seed head?
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Mammals
Sunflower seed heads are a natural source of food for
squirrels, hamsters, gerbils, and all sorts of furry friends - including small
monkeys. Many of these little critters have fun playing with the seed head as well
as chowing down on the seeds.
Izzy the chinchilla with one of our small sunflower seed heads.
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Craft
Projects
A sunflower seed head can make an interesting addition to many craft projects. You
can attach a few sunflower seed heads to a grapevine wreath base as shown above.
Also, add a few seed heads to your next popcorn string with cranberries for outdoor (or
indoor) evergreen decorations.
Milly Pollock of Chico, CA sent us this photo of a Sunshine Wreath she
made from one of our Sunflower Seed Heads
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Positioning Seed
Heads
Sunflower seed heads can be displayed in a variety
of ways. The simplest is to just lay the seed head on its back. For hanging,
we make use of screw eyes in the woody backs. Outside, we hang these eyes on
1-1/4" cup hooks screwed in to a post. For cages, put the seed head inside and
slip the screw eye through the cage. On the outside of the cage, slip a short length
of wooden dowel rod through the eye as a holder.
A screw eye in the back of one of our small
seed heads.
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One medium seed head
laying flat and two small seed heads hanging from cup hooks. If you have squirrels
(like we do), use pliers to close the cup hooks most of the way. |
A Nibbler sized seed head with a dowel rod
pin. You might try a rubber band over both ends of the dowel if it has a tendency to
slip through. A tapered piece of a tree branch does good as it fits snuggly.
We are told that a plastic bag twistie also works well to secure the scew eye to the bars
of the cage. |
Journal
Notes
1/15/08 - We had to drop our "Organic" designation due to growth of the business.
We have selected "All Natural" as our new descriptor.
9/8/08 - A rather so-so growing season. We had one
stretch of 21 days without a soaking rain. We have started harvesting the seed heads
that are ready and started the drying process. Hopefully, we can start taking orders
in early October.
9/18/2008 - We got over 14" of rain the first 2 weeks
of September. Many plants have fallen over. We are working to recover what we
can.
10/25/2008 - The September rains ruined most of our early
crop. Fortunately, we have several plantings and our last planting produced a good
harvest - but being later in the season, we didn't get the really big seed heads.
10/26/2008 - We have now SOLD OUT of the LARGE size
10/28/2008 - Placed a Temporary hold on Medium size
ordering to allow late harvested seed heads to dry completely.
To get e-mails on the status of our sunflower crop -
just sign up in our Guestbook. |
Seeds
While we endeavor to provide complete seed heads,
some seeds may drop from the heads during picking, drying, and shipping.
Seed Types
We plant a variety of store bought seeds and seeds
saved from the previous season to produce the best seed heads. As a result, your
seed heads may be white, black, striped, gray, etc. If you want only a certain
color/type, please let us know in the "Comments" section of the order form.
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Sizes
Sunflower
seed heads are measured when they are taken from the field and sorted. During the
drying process some shrinkage may occur. Also, some seed heads are dome-shaped -
their sizes are estimated as if they were flattened.
Dried sunflower seed heads on our Greenhouse drying
racks
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