Growing Sunflowers : sunflower Varieties, Care, Problems, And Harvest

Have you ever driven past a field of beautiful sunflowers growing in rows and thought: “That’s what I want Growing Sunflowers in my garden?”? Have you thought about how to use sunflower and how it differs from other plants in your garden?

She makes a beautiful bouquet, but you can’t forget how many colors she brings to the garden, and she also produces seeds that make tasty snacks. It is also perfect for attracting pollinators and produces enough pollen to produce seeds for a tasty snack.

Varieties of sunflowers

There are many varieties of sunflowers, and here is all you need to know to grow your own sunflower bed.

Giant Sungold

If you are in the market for a unique sunflower, a huge sungold will fit in, but if you buy seeds, you may also find other varieties that fit your growing situation well. I will share some of the most prominent with you, as well as some tips and tricks to plant sunflowers in your garden.

It does not look like a typical sunflower, but is larger than a swollen dandelion, and the flowers reach eight inches in diameter. This plant grows up to 1.60 meters high and is known as double flowering sunflowers.

Strawberry Blonde

This variety is a multicolored sunflower to 1.60 m tall with yellow tips, while the remaining flowers are reddish pink. My favorite sunflowers are the colorful varieties, I think the color gives the garden something very special.

Mammoth Russian

When they grow extremely large and produce large, strong heads of color, they are hard to miss. Many people grow sunflowers due to their sheer size, but the mammoth Russian grows up to 1.5 m tall, with yellow tips and a large head of yellow flowers.

Italian White

They also produce large, striped seeds that are easy to identify, so you will love the Italian white. Do you want bright flowers that are tall but not quite as striking, or would you rather not?

Little Becka

Some people fear sunflowers because they lack the space to grow them, but some like them because of their beauty. They grow four inches of white flowers and have a large, dark-colored center. These flowers are 5 to 7 feet tall and produce several flowers during the growing season.

The flowers of these plants are not tiny, however, and some grow up to six centimeters wide, six times the normal size. They are stunning, but diversity does not solve all our problems, especially in the case of sunflowers and other plants with large flowers.

Moulin Rouge

Those who think red is “Moulin Rouge” are right, but there are some dark red flowers that stand out. This is a short variety of sunflower that reaches only four feet and is one of the largest sunflowers in the world, with a diameter of about six centimeters. The color starts with gold and then changes to gold at the base, then purple and purple.

Soraya

Due to their tendency, these sunflowers are afraid of falling, so that they can damage trees and shrubs in the garden.

Lemon Queen

In the opening, I mentioned how great sunflowers are to attract pollinators, and that there are some varieties. The Lemon Queen is considered the number one bee, so she is drawn to this variety.

Super Snack Mix

Many people grow sunflowers with the intention of eating the seeds, but the Super Snack Mix is a smart option for seed lovers as it produces large seeds that are easy to crack and snack on.

This variety grows up to 1.60 meters high, and bees and butterflies are also attracted by the flowers as well as the small size and bright color of the sunflowers.

Taiyo

Japanese heirlooms that grow up to 5-6 feet tall, this variety is best harvested in the summer months. It produces large heads with large centers, which are most commonly used in flower arrangements. 

How to Grow Sunflowers

Growing sunflowers requires a good understanding of where to plant them and the right care for them. Then you should be on your way to producing a beautiful sunflower summer.

Make sure you loosen the soil where you want to plant, and the goal is to have at least 1 / 2 inch of soil in front of the sunflowers.

You can use aged manure, compost or chemical fertilizer, but you must be careful to spread a long pile of roots and cover it with soil.

Make sure the floor temperature is between 55 and 60 degrees and that it can be on the side of a building. Sunflowers can be planted where they have a windbreak, but all you can do is plant along the fence line.

The stronger the plants, the harder it will be for the wind to knock them over, so you want to do everything you can to encourage strong roots on the plant. Once you have planted the seeds, you want a fertilizer that helps the roots. It is usually the end of April or the beginning of May, but in some places it can be as early as March or April.

Once the soil is ready, you can sow the seeds in rows, keeping a reasonable distance, but making sure that they are sown only one centimeter deep. You can also plant dwarf sunflower varieties of a pot, so make sure that you sow the seeds only about one centimeter deep and plant them on the bottom of the pot.

Make sure to give yourself well – well drained, loose soil and also make sure to put a lot of fertilizer into the soil so that the seeds get the fertilizer they need to grow.

If you find that this is a problem, you can buy a net to protect the seeds while they germinate and begin to germinate. If you want to promote continuous growth throughout the summer, wait until the last frost and then add additional sunflower seeds every few weeks. 

Protect the Seeds and Seedlings

I like to grab sunflower seeds and make a meal of it and look out for birds and squirrels.

There are some important things you need to do to help your plants have a healthy growing season. Be careful to overturn your plantations, and when the plants are ready to stop producing, it is time for the next plant to show its effect.

No extensive surgery is required, but high varieties of sunflowers must be staked out to prevent the stems from breaking off. Once the plants have reached their final height, place a fixed stake at an angle to the ground and tie it to the stem of the sunflower with a life-line.

Bamboo or tobacco sticks will do the job, but be careful not to overdo it, the right amount of water is vital for the harvest of sunflowers. Depending on the degree of ripeness and type of sunflower, different amounts of water are required.

If the soil around the plant is dry, water should be used when the plants are young, but if the soil is still moist, there is a risk of overwatering. If the soil around a plant is drier, use water at least once a week, if not more often.

As the plants age and begin to hold their own, they water them more often, especially when there is seasonal humidity or drought.

In some cases it is necessary to water them more or less often, but in other cases not as much or as little as with other plants.

When watering a mature plant, add three to four liters of water to the soil around the plant every week. If you fertilize sunflowers once or twice a month, they should be abundant. The goal is not to survive without fertilizer, but to ensure that plants need the most fertilizer they need.

Draw a circle around the plant and fill it with fertilizer, but you must make sure that the fertilizer does not touch the base of the plants.

If you over fertilize the plant, you run the risk of weakening the stems and the sunflowers could fall over. When you mulch around the base of a sunflower, it helps it retain moisture and keeps weeds away, helping the sunflower maintain the moisture it needs to stay healthy. It is not necessary to lay a thick layer of mulch at the foot of the sunflower. As sunflowers handle drought well, this helps them maintain their need for moisture while remaining healthy and protecting themselves from pests.

If it is not several centimeters thick, the necessary work will not be done, as it damages the roots of the sunflower.

Problems and Solutions

Growing sunflowers is generally easy and you have a few things that can happen, but these problems can be fixed if you know what you are dealing with in advance.

You will also start to see the leaves roll up and look shapeless, but you can see that in the image below with the sunflowers at the top of this post. 

Rust looks exactly as it sounds, and is seen on the right side of the image below, as well as on the left.

Normally it does not kill the plant, but it only worsens its general health, and once it has developed, it is difficult to get rid of it.

Start by clearing the sunflowers of debris and also make sure that you do not wet the leaves when watering. Remove the affected areas and remove all contaminants such as leaves, stems, roots, leaves and leaves of the sunflower.

Powdery mildew is a fungus that makes the leaves of the plant look as if they were sprinkled with powdered sugar. Older leaves often develop their first and can also be treated with copper fungicide. Preventive measures can be taken for plants polluted with sulfur, such as keeping an appropriate distance from the plants for the air flow and avoiding moisture in the leaves.

Mildew can be treated with fungicides to remove the infected parts of the sunflower, and the disease can also be prevented by not watering sunflowers overhead.

If you can reduce humidity, you can reduce the chance of contracting the disease and the risk of contracting it increases.

Spotted leaf herb is a fungus that forms in the soil, and there is no cure for it, but you can turn the plant around to get rid of it.

Sunflower seeds have a small seed in the outer shell, and when you open the shell and there is no seed, you know you have a problem.

This usually happens when autumn comes early, and the best way to prevent this is to plant earlier, but it can cause problems later in the year.

Downy Mildew is a blue tinted fungus and you need to use a fungicide to treat it like any other fungus. The ground of the leaves is formed by mildew, which can cause problems in the spring and summer months.

You need to use a fungicide to treat mildew, as you do with any other fungus, but if you don’t like the idea of using fungicides on your plants, you can try using baking soda and spraying it on the plant and then spraying it again in the spring.

Birds and Squirrels

Mature sunflower heads must also be covered, and birds and squirrels will try to eat the seeds when you plant them for the first time, as mentioned above. You need to cover the newly planted seeds with a net so that they are not eaten, but they must shoot safely and can form a head before they are available to you.

Deer think that you can use objects that you may already have at hand, but you must prevent them from entering your property by means of suitable fences. Deer must think for themselves and behave like food sources and not harm humans or other animals.

Bush beans are a great companion plant because they produce their own nitrogen, meaning that they and sunflowers do not compete for nutrients in the soil. When you see a sunflower, it is picked by worms, but moths are the biggest threat when you grow sunflowers while they try to lay their eggs on the flowers of the sunflower itself.

Sunflowers are a natural trellis to support cucumbers and corn, and they also provide the shade that cucumbers and lettuce need.

Although sunflowers are known for their savory nature and thick stems, any plant that can easily be infected with aphids is a good candidate for planting sunflowers. Sunflower seeds, like the red and white ones on the right, are difficult to recognize and prevent them from entering.

Potatoes are a bad companion plant for sunflowers, but when planted side by side, sunflower and potato work against each other.

How to Store and Harvest Sunflowers

Harvesting and storing sunflower seeds is an easy process, but before you grow sunflowers you need to know how to harvest them properly. Start by thinning the sunflowers with a thin layer of water, about 1 / 2 cup at a time, and then a little more water.

Then you will want to cut off the main shoot that holds the head after the flowers have bloomed. You have to keep an eye on when it looks like the bloomer might bloom, but it’s not.

Finally, you want to make sure you give it fresh water every day and cut the flowers off in the morning to prevent them from wilting. Place the sunflowers in a tall vase to hold them and encourage additional side flowers.

This can help them to last a week or more, but they can do a lot of damage to the plant if they do not, especially in winter.

The heads begin to turn yellow and eventually brown, but wait until the sunflowers have blossomed and all their seeds have been harvested.

When this happens, you need to put cheesecloth over the head of the flower to keep birds away, and then cut off the heads at the point where they start. I # I saw sunflower heads hanging in the sun for days because they were sad, but then it was time to act.

Instead of waiting for them to overhang as described above, cut them off when the base turns brown and hang them in a place where they are pest-free (e.g. indoors) to dry them out. After harvesting, the seeds must be stored and used, or when cutting off the flower heads, using a finger or fork to remove them.

If you want to eat them, they are best eaten immediately, but they do not need to be dried if you want to store them for later use as food for another plant. You can also put the seeds in a freezer bag and leave them in the freezer for up to a year and then store them in an airtight container for two to three months. They can then be stored in a cool, dark place and stored for at least a week or, if necessary, a few days.