How to Grow Sunflowers for Competitions – A Step By Step Guide for School Children (and their grown ups)
Growing Sunflowers is a really fun thing to do – they’re really easy to grow; they grow very fast, which is exciting; they have HUGE flower heads right at the top in summer-y colours of yellow, orange and sometimes red, and you can use the seeds afterwards to feed the birds in winter. So far, so good – HOWEVER, there is a special type of Sunflower that grows very, very tall indeed (we’re talking a Jack and the Beanstalk scenario here) and this is what you have here. (No cow swops required.)
Your mission (if you choose to accept it) is to grow the biggest Sunflower you possibly can by the Autumn Term. All your school friends will be doing the same and there will be Prizes, and possibly a School Feast, at the end of it all.
Sunflowers come from Mexico so you need to create the same conditions in your garden or school grounds for them to do their best here in England. This means finding a spot with lots of sunshine, shelter from the wind (very important) and giving them lots of food and water at intervals while they are growing. (Think Mexican occasional downpour not British daily drizzle.)
Part One – Getting Ready to Plant
Very Important! – Stand back and think things through before you rush into sowing your seeds to give yourself the best chance of success.
1) Finding the Best Place
The very first thing to do is to find the best place for your Sunflower to grow in.
You will need: a notebook; a pencil; a compass; some gardening gloves if you have prickly shrubs. A tape measure (optional).
1. Choose a sunny day, around the end of February onwards, and go out into your garden around midday when the sun is at its highest. Have a really good look round to spot things which will help or hinder your Sunflower from growing tall and strong. Sunflowers have bigger heads in relation to their stalks, which means they can break easily, so they’ll need to be sheltered from the wind. They’ll also need a place where the sun will be directly on them for most, but not all, of the day. (More on this later.)
2. Take out your notebook and mark down the boundaries of your garden (fences, walls, hedges) and draw in any solid buildings (your house, garage, shed as well as those of your neighbours if they’re close to the boundary) as these will cast the strongest shade. Remember that shadows are shorter in summer than they are now (ask your science teacher why) so you may have more choice than you think if your garden is quite small. How much sun is in the garden? Is the garden sheltered from the wind or open to it? Where are the trees, shrubs or big plants in the garden? – they will cast shade too and also compete for food and water if your planting spot is too close to them. Don’t have it close to a pathway or washing line either where people could knock into your growing Sunflower. Mark all these things on your plan.
Read the rest of this entry »