I Grew a Sunflower!

One of the volunteer sunflower seeds bloomed!  There are a few others scattered around.  Some of them might make it to flower.

There are many varieties of sunflowers.  Not all of them are the 8-foot high giant sunflowers that some people grow for the bragging rights.  Not all of them even produce edible seeds.  What was in the bird feed grew about two feet high, which is fine with me.

I do not plan to harvest seeds from the flower.  That would just be inviting more critters into the yard.  It was a fun experiment.

In other gardening news, I was finally able to plant my seedlings.  I got a new roof, and the amount of tar and dust out there was incredible.  I'm really hoping it didn't settle too badly into the soil of pots I couldn't move.

I broke out two new bowl pots I forgot I had because they were behind the gate I don't use.  One bowl is now sage and oregano, and the other is arugula and hybrid romaine.  Well, that's what seeds I put in them.  We'll see if anything actually grows.  I had to be careful to leave room in the garden for more seedlings.  One transplanted broccoli might die, but I have another inside still.  I put more arugula and romaine out in the front yard lettuce patch, where it can battle it out with the thyme.  Honestly,  I might just pull the thyme and dry it, which will fill the jar for a couple of years.

I also put in the garlic, partially to keep the eggplant company and ward off bugs.  There's no actual over-wintering of garlic here, but it's still going to take 6-8 months to grow.  I should know which cloves are viable within a month, giving me plenty of time to try again if some fail.  I only did seven, which doesn't seem like nearly enough.  The problem is they won't be harvested until June, so I can't put them anywhere I might want to plant something in April/May.  I'll have to wait for some of the other young plants to fill out a little.  That will give me some idea what kind of space I still have.