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Sunflowers for the Garden and Kitchen

© Diana Pederson

Sunflowers towering overhead are one of the stars of a late summer-early fall garden. Seeing acre upon acre of sunflowers, all dutifully facing the sun, is a wonderful sight. I've always wondered how the growers keep the birds from devouring their crop? Birders throughout the land use sunflower seeds to attract many species to their winter yards. My friendly neighborhood squirrels always seem to miss finding a few seeds over the winter. I love knowing they will have the privilege of harvesting them from my yard in the fall.

How long has it been since you grew some sunflowers? The Great Sunflower Book by Barbara Flores, published in 1997 by Ten Speed Press will definitely encourage you to make a place for these plants in next year's garden.

Barbara Flores discusses the history of sunflowers. They were cultivated by the Native Americans for nearly 3,000 years. According to Flores' research, the Indians used sunflowers for everything from food to hair oil. You'll have to read this book to learn the history of sunflowers from the American Indians to the Europeans to the Russians who really developed it as a food and oil crop. By the way, Russians reintroduced this plant to modern America!

Sunflowers belong to the daisy family. Flores illustrates and describes 33 of the 50 common species and cultivars. The most common sunflowers are annuals. There are several perennial species, which typically have smaller flowers. I like the idea of these plants returning to a garden year after year and will definitely seek out some of these perennial varieties for next season's garden. Studying this book makes me eager for seed catalogs to arrive. I'd like to find the sunflower called "supermane" which is a thick petaled sunflower that grows on a plant resembling the shape of a Christmas tree. I am sure every gardener would find one or two sunflowers to add to their gardens after reading this book.

A short section on growing sunflowers teaches you everything you need to know to create your own sunflower cultivar. If you live in an area with high numbers of squirrels, I suggest you start the seeds inside even though they are quite easy to sow directly into your garden. Every time I've tried planting seeds outside, the squirrels dug them up and ate them. I batted zero for flowers. Flores didn't mention this particular problem so maybe she lives in an area without these fascinating critters.

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