Ah! sunflower

August is for sunflowers! I love all the tiny little flowers gathered together into one great big sunny ring of yellow.

(Wikipedia says there are 1,000-2,000 little flowers per head and that H. Vogel proposed in 1979 that the polar coordinates of their arrangement is modeled by r = c \sqrt{n}, \theta = n \times 137.5^{\circ}.)

Our community gardens are full of many 15 foot tall sunflowers this year. They stand above the fence tops. The sparrows, goldfinches and chickadees are singing as they flit among them.

Ah! sunflower, weary of time,
Who countest the steps of the sun,
Seeking after that sweet golden clime
Where the traveller’s journey is done;

William Blake P. 1793

sunflowers under bulletin board

I found some nice Teddy bear sunflowers in a garden store last weekend and bought plants to go under our community garden bulletin board. I had these in my plot last year. They stay short but fill out and keep blooming.

sunflowers!

Its sunflower time! One of my favorite things to do is photographing sunflowers. Usually there's a bee or several bees on it. Today there were also bright yellow gold finches.

I planted my sunflowers late (actually the first planting was eaten by chipmunks and it took me some time to replant in pots and transplant to my plot). The flowers above are all growing in other garden plots - not mine. I have just one in bloom now (below, a Teddy Bear Dwarf Yellow from Botanical Interests),and three or four more varieties budded up and coming soon.

today's sowing list: sunflowers and soybeans

Normally I would direct seed sunflowers and soybeans, but because of my voracious chipmunk, I am sowing them at home in trays and will transplant.

Sunflowers:
Tahumara white (Sand Hill)
Ling's Grey Stripe (Johnny's)
Elf's blend (Botanical Interests)

Soybeans:
Butterbeans (Johnny's)
Envy (Johnny's)

My soybeans that I planted 2 weeks ago had a germination rate of about 3/30 - bad. Today I remembered that I specifically bought the soybean inoculant and I forgot to use it. Today I added it to the soil as I sowed. I also went ahead and planted 3-4 seeds per cell. I hope to get a good crop.

I mostly eat soybeans as edamame (as an appetizer with salt and directly from the pod). I find that home grown are so much better than store bought - even if they're frozen. The best varieties of soybeans are developed by commercial growers to ripen all at once. So sometime in mid August, I look forward to a week of lots of fresh-from-the-garden edamame, then for a month or so, I have fresh frozen. Then ... its back to the store again ...

The sunflowers are an experiment. Sunflowers don't transplant well. I've killed them several times trying to move volunteers. But I've also bought potted plants and they transplanted fine. I wanted to use peat pots, but didn't have any left. So I used regular plastic seed cells. I'll be try to be careful to not disturb the roots when transplanting.

sunflowers in their glory

I think the sunflowers may be my favorite!

And this year the gardens have a lot of variety. Dark and light. Giant ones and minis. Single and doubles. I like how they glow in the 6 pm light.

All of these are from other peoples plots. None of my sunflowers grew this year.

chickadees enjoy the last sunflowers of summer

This must be one of the best days of the year for a chickadee. Abundant seeds. Warm sunshine. The chicks are raised and on their own.

This little guy was on the sunflower stems outside my living room window this morning. He didn't mind my camera too much and I got several close shots. He was making quiet chirps as he hopped and gathered seeds.

Today is the last full day of summer - tomorrow at 3:40 pm GMT is the autumnal equinox.

the sunflower project

I have been reading about the Sunflower Project.

Since I found that so many of my sunflower seeds were empty, I was very interested when earlysnowdrop left me a comment saying that empty seeds means they have not been pollinated and are an indicator of the health of bee populations in the garden. The Sunflower Project looks at sunflower seed samples to follow bee health.

I made some more seed counts on the same sunflower below.

Four sets of counts, n=30 for each, 120 total seeds. Percentages were 67%, 53%, 43% and 63%. Mean 57%, standard deviation 11, standard error 5.3.

So, just over half of my sunflower seeds were pollinated (about 57%). I don't think this rate is very good.

This sunflower bloomed early (the end of July) and there weren't many bees around then. Also, it was very rainy, which probably isn't good for the bees. We have a lot more bees now and I bet my next sunflowers will have better seed production.

Reading:
Wild bees make honey bees better pollinators
Factsheet: Native Bee Pollination of Hybrid Sunflowers


Hymenoptera

sunflower seeds

I picked the giant sunflower head from my community plot yesterday. The birds had started helping themselves to the seeds. The head measured 15 inches across! Enourmous!

To make salted roasted seeds, I followed the recipe here. Clean 1 cup of seeds, boil 1 hour in salt water, the oven roast at 325 F for 45 minutes.

The seeds were yummy. Great big striped shells. We were surprised, though, at how many were empty. Out of 30 seeds I counted, only 13 had a kernel inside.

The rest of the sunflower head is out for the birds now. I'm keeping an eye on it to see if I can get a photo of a chickadee on it.



By the way, the sunflower world records are here. The largest head was 32 ¼ in. (82 cm) diameter grown by Emily Martin in Maple Ridge, British Columbia, Canada in 1983. Holy cow! That's a big one!

green metallic bee on a sunflower

In place of honeybees, we have lots of Green Metallics and bumblebees this year.

Hymenoptera

sunflower autumn gold

This sunflower is growing in a pot on my patio. Its 6 or 7 feet tall. I had to get a ladder out to get this photo. I have several different varieties of sunflowers planted around my yard this year. This is the first to bloom. I wonder who will find it first - the squirrels or birds?

Sunflowers and bees

I planted my sunflower seeds too late this year and they didn't sprout. So couple weeks ago I bought some sunflower plants to make a nice row. They are short, about 3 feet tall, but blooming nicely and lots of buds coming. The bees love them. They get sooo coated with pollen its a wonder they can fly.