2007年9月20日星期四

Sunflowers and Sunflower Seeds 向日葵 / 葵花籽

I love sunflowers; they bring smiles to my face. I also love roasted sunflower seeds. Because of their decorative and culinary characters, sunflowers have always earned a place in my garden every year.



This year, I sowed two varieties directly in the ground in May: one with white seeds (variety name not noted, seeds brought home by my daughter from school) and the other one with black seeds (seeds from China). Both are supposed to produce tall plants with giant seed heads. I had grown the white one last year with success. This is an amazing variety with either huge seed heads 30 cm in diameter with big, full white seeds; or produces lots of side shoots with pure yellow flowers.
One of the plants produced more than 36 side shoots last year, an absolute record in my sunflower growing history! The black one is new to me. Both varieties turned out to be really fast growers. By mid July, they had grown to their full size of 2.5-3 m tall; producing bunches of side shoots with beautiful flowers. I thinned some side shoots out (flowers in the vase of course), hoping to get bigger single seed heads. It didn’t help much, the heads remained small, the size of only a football or smaller. There were a few exceptions though for both the white and the black varieties, those produced giant seed heads the size bigger than a basketball with big seeds. Some of them have been harvested last weekend:


As far as the flowers are concerned, I consider it a successful year. The glorious blushes of bright yellow flowers on the plants and their side shoots brightened this year’s already gloomy and cloudy summer days up for a very long time. But on the seed side of the story, it’s of a disappointment really. I blame mainly the constant rainy weather and cooler temperature this year for their poor performance, and hope that they would amaze me the way the white one did last year if we are to be blessed with drier and sunnier days next summer.

11 条评论:

匿名 说...

Excellent post. I was checking continuously this blog and I am impressed!
Extremely useful info specifically the ultimate section
:) I care for such info much. I was seeking this particular info for a long time.
Thanks and best of luck.

My webpage; faraday flashlights

匿名 说...

You are so interesting! I do not think I have read a single thing like that before.

So good to discover someone with unique thoughts on this subject matter.
Seriously.. thanks for starting this up. This site is something that is needed on the internet, someone
with some originality!

my webpage questionsgetanswered.com

匿名 说...

Superb blog! Do you have any suggestions for aspiring writers?
I'm planning to start my own blog soon but I'm a little lost on everything.

Would you advise starting with a free platform like Wordpress or go for a paid option?

There are so many options out there that I'm totally confused .. Any tips? Bless you!

Here is my page ... goodwill online store

匿名 说...

Helpful info. Lucky me I found your site unintentionally, and
I'm surprised why this coincidence did not happened earlier! I bookmarked it.

Here is my homepage: reverse osmosis Filtration

匿名 说...

What's up, I desire to subscribe for this web site to obtain newest updates, therefore where can i do it please assist.

My web-site; snoring mask

匿名 说...

Hello there! Do you know if they make any plugins to assist with Search Engine Optimization?
I'm trying to get my blog to rank for some targeted keywords but I'm not seeing very good gains.
If you know of any please share. Thank you!

Feel free to visit my blog ... juicer easy

匿名 说...

Appreciating the time and effort you put into your site and in depth
information you present. It's nice to come across a blog every once in a while that isn't the same out of date rehashed information.
Excellent read! I've bookmarked your site and I'm adding your RSS feeds to my Google account.


my web blog :: juicer easy

匿名 说...

You really make it seem so easy with your presentation but I find this matter to be really
something that I think I would never understand. It seems too complex and extremely broad for me.
I'm looking forward for your next post, I will try to get the hang of it!

my blog lemon juicers

匿名 说...

What's up, all the time i used to check webpage posts here early in the daylight, for the reason that i like to gain knowledge of more and more.

Feel free to visit my page :: snoring mask

匿名 说...

Just want to say your article is as astounding.

The clearness in your post is simply nice and i can assume you're an expert on this subject. Fine with your permission allow me to grab your RSS feed to keep updated with forthcoming post. Thanks a million and please carry on the rewarding work.

Here is my web blog: dev003.citypulsela.com

匿名 说...

I'm not sure exactly why but this website is loading extremely slow for me. Is anyone else having this problem or is it a problem on my end? I'll check back later on and see if the
problem still exists.

my webpage :: daytime tv