How to Plant a Crop of Sunflower

Most of the sunflowers I see are either growing wild or in small gardens in private yards. The wife heard that growing sunflower could be not only fun but profitable, so on my last days off, we decided to plant some and see what happened. Here are some suggestions of how to grow your sunflower crop.

Suggestion One:
Make sure you have plenty of room for the planting, a little downhill slope is nice, but not essential.

Suggestion Two:
Cut the grass, weeds or whatever is already growing there down to a nub. It will make the tilling easier. If you have your own tiller/mower it's a great advantage.

Suggestion Three:
Don't till the whole thing! Just decide where you want the sunflower rows for best access to water and sunshine and till the rows themselves. It's better if you till it twice to be sure the dirt is loose enough for the root systems to prosper. Don't make the rows too close, leave about two feet between the rows so you can walk down them as they grow and make sure your watering system works. Also, weeding is easier if you have enough room to bend and stoop as you pull out the weeds that are sure to pop up.

Suggestion Four:
Find a really good fertilizer. Our neighbor raises sheep and gave us a small mountain of sheep manure to use. It isn't too hot and works great when mixed with dirt and water. You can use cow manure or horse manure, or you can buy different types of fertilizer from several places, like Wal-Mart, garden supply stores and some hardware stores. Mix the fertilizer in the dirt, keeping it loose and fluffy.

Suggestion Five:
Seeds come in different varieties, so be careful what you choose. The larger ones are good in some areas and the smaller ones work better in other places. We used a mixture of seeds and will know next fall which of them work best. Put the seeds about one foot apart and don't poke them too deeply into the dirt. An inch or less works best. Cover the seeds with loose dirt and pat it down very lightly.

Suggestion Six:
If it's a warm day with plenty of sunshine and the dirt is fairly dry, you'll have to water right away. Don't use a stream of water on the seeds! Use a fairly light spray that wets it down without washing the seeds away. Depending on how large your sunflower "farm" is, it could be an easy task or an all day chore. I set a sprinkler on a long hose between the rows and moved it along at half hour intervals to make sure the entire crop got wet.

Suggestion Seven: The pathways between the rows need to be covered or the fertilizer and water will promote a huge crop of weeds that can kill your sunflowers. We chose "rice straw" as a ground covering. The rice straw is very cheap and comes in bales. Break the bales open and put the rice straw on the ground between the rows of tilled dirt, not covering the tilling, just the weeds, etc. in between. Depending on the size of your sunflower garden, it can take one bale or several. Our crop is ½ an acre and took two bales.

Suggestion Eight:
Walk through the garden every day to tamp down the ground covering and make sure it remains in place. The early stages of your sunflower farm are the most crucial. Don't try to do any weeding yet, you may be pulling up the sunflowers without realizing it! Keep watering with a spray every day or two (depending on whether the dirt is still wet from the previous watering) until your sunflowers are several inches tall. Then, during your daily tamping down walk, you can start to pull the occasional weed that shows up.

Suggestion Nine:
As soon as the plants are a foot tall (don't panic, they grow really fast!) you can start a leak hose to keep them watered without fear that the seeds will wash away. If possible, you can use pipes instead of hoses to insure the daily watering so you don't have to move the hoses around. As the plants grow, it will become impossible in a large garden. In a small garden, it shouldn't be too difficult.