sunflowers!

Here are the mammoth sunflower seedlings that are supposed to grow to seven to ten feet tall. They will have large heads the size of a steering wheel that produce many seeds good for roasting or birdseed. Single flower per plant and from what I hear the stalks are supposed to be self supporting. I thought for sure I would need to stake them, but am trying desperately to not buy anymore t-posts or anything for that matter.










These mammoth sunflowers are coming along very nicely except for the couple of feet where nothing germinated. I assume a bird or field mouse got to them, or else we did a poor job sowing the seeds. The peas are the same way; really thick in one part and then there's a whole vacant spot. Oh well, I figure we can plant something else there. Maybe the last of my roma tomatoes that were my "back-ups", but everything turned out fine. I think we only lost one roma plant. But for now they will remain in their new pots. My next project is to build some trellises and tee-pees out of whatever I have laying around the property. We did some major weeding today, as everything has just gotten to the point where the weeds are big enough to be pulled and, the plants that are gonna come up are up.







Here is an experimental trellis from the lemon cucumber row arching over to the pole beans. I am slightly concerned as to weather they will hold once the plants have gotten bigger and grown up either side. The rainy season is still upon us.





more mammoth sunflower seedlings





Our home-made composter has greatly reduced in volume since being filled 3/4 full only a month ago. i might try to make another one closer to the garden to install some drippers. It is way too dry to get really good compost, although it has gotten a lot smaller. We really need a decent pitch fork but they are like forty dollars at the hardware store.