(I am putting this in the vegetable category because they are normally grown in a vegetable garden, even though technically speaking, they would be a fruit! But I don’t think that is the section many people would check to learn about them, am I right?)
Now that fall is here, the sunflowers have bloomed their beautiful flowers and now they are looking pretty sad. Their heads have drooped, their petals have dropped and if you aren’t quick about it, the birds will start to harvest the heads for you. Sunflower seeds are an excellent snack for both humans and livestock. We grow lots of sunflowers not only for their beauty but also to plant the following year and as an extra source of homegrown feed for our animals through the winter.
When are they ready? Look for:
- Drooping head
- Yellowing and browning on the back of the head
- Outer petals brown, withered and falling off
- Lack of flower structure – if you rub your hand along the face of the sunflower, the disc florets, or small flowers that made the inner part of the sunflower yellow, should be brown and will rub right off.
- Seeds are black and white striped and may be beginning to fall out. Immature seed is not striped yet. You will also notice a lo
How do you harvest? The important goal here, no matter which method you use, is to dry your seeds or they will mold and be unusable. They will not be dry coming off the stem unless the end of your summer has been hot and dry. There are two common ways – first, cut the heads with about a foot of stem or so left on it. Tie a few heads together and hang them from the rafters of your barn or garage to air dry. Or, you can remove the seeds right away from the head and lay them out in a flat layer, mixing daily, until they are dry.
When you are ready to remove the seeds from the head, be sure to remove all the inner ray florets. They usually rub off really easily. Then you start to rub out the seeds – once you get a few seeds popped loose the rest are pretty easy to remove.
Once the seeds are out, you will notice you probably have some extra debris from the head in with your seeds. If you spill the sunflower seeds – slowly – into another container while in front of a fan on low/medium, the debris should blow right out while the seeds fall into the bowl.
From here, you can brine or roast your sunflower seeds, but that is beyond the scope of this blog so I will encourage you to ask around or google how to eat and enjoy your seeds! Or you can save them for the following year, or feed them to your animals. Enjoy!