Fall Equinox & The Lemon Queens

September 21^st represents the autumnal equinox, the point in the year when the length of day and night are equal (the exact time this year is 11:09 p.m. ET). Starting today (September 22 nd), the days will be getting shorter, the air brisker, the nights a little longer. Sunflowers and other garden plants that have been working hard to grow leaves and blooms now subtly switch tactics. The shorter days are a signal for them to devote most of their energy to making fruits and seeds against the time when they will eventually stop producing energy altogether and dry up.

Even though the days are shorter, there will still be blooms on many a sunflower throughout sunny September. You may want to consider saving your sunflower seeds & especially the Lemon Queen Sunflower seeds. as these are a favorite of honey bees!

If the birds and other critters don’t beat you to it, you could have a nice stash of sunflower seeds for planting or sharing next year. It’s easy. Just follow these steps:

1. Identify the earliest, biggest and best-looking sunflowers in your garden.

2. Watch and wait for the plant's seeds to ripen. When the flowers begin to drop away, you will see little green nubs all over the round head of the sunflower. In a week or so, they will begin to darken and the pollen tips will fall away easily.

3. Once the seeds are ripe, cut the sunflower head and carefully place it upside-down in a paper bag, ensuring any seeds that fall go directly into the bag.

4. Hang the bag in a cool, dry place.

5. Examine the seeds every few days. As they dry out, some the seeds will easily fall out of the flower head to the bottom of the bag.

6. When the seeds are dry (about 2 -3 weeks) remove the seeds completely from the head, separating out any leaves, stems or other debris.

7. Store in a closed container and label with the year and type of seed. If stored away from moisture, most seeds will be viable for the next few years.

Sunflower varieties readily mate. When they do that, the seeds produce plants that are intermediate between the two parent types. This means that if a bee brought in pollen from one of your neighbors Mammoth sunflowers, next years seed will not be true Lemon Queen.

Happy Autumn!

The Great Sunflower Project

I just received my free sunflower seeds from The Great Sunflower Project this past week. (See my 2/16/09 post describing this project)

I have raised garden beds for my vegetables but this year I'm cutting way back on the vegetables. I've purchased a produce subscription through Arctic Organics based in Palmer. For one fee, you receive a variety of organic, locally grown, vegetables every week! And the best part is that their delivery area is only a couple of blocks from my house so every Wednesday Will & I can go for a walk & pick up our vegetables.

Arctic Organics provides new & unusual vegetables & with every delivery you also receive a newsletter identifying the contents & recipes to give you ideas for meal preparation. I love this! It's the main reason I wanted to grow less vegetables & more sunflowers this year ~ I'm in a rut with my garden....little gardening joke there!

Anyway, back to the Sunflower Project. I thought I would plant one large raised vegetable bed all in sunflowers. The sunflowers for the project have to be Lemon Queen so I'm going to plant most of the bed in that variety but also include some miniature & ornamental sunflowers. It should look striking & hopefully the bees will appreciate the pollen.

The bees....yes, that's the point of The Great Sunflower Project. It's basically a research project to collect data on when, where & how long you see bees visiting the sunflowers. Seeing no bees is important too. I don't think that will happen since I have two bee hives in my yard & they love my garden & fruit bushes/trees.

I'm hoping to have a set time every day or week when Will & I do our bee counting in the garden. Hopefully we'll be able to get some good photos too. Maybe have a cup of tea, a couple of cookies, & count bees...all in the name of science!

Calling all Gardeners & Beekeepers!

There's been lots of attention in the news recently about the plight of the honey bees & colony collaspe disorder. Here's a great opportunity if you're a beekeeper &/or gardener. It's also a great way to get kids involved in the garden while participating in a little scientific research. It's called The Great Sunflower Project.

Basically, this non-profit sends you free sunflower seeds (Lemon Queen), you plant them & then observe when honey bees are visiting the plants & thus pollinating the plants. By watching and recording the bees at sunflowers in your garden, you can help gather information to gain and understand the challenges that bees are facing. You can either report your findings by email or snail mail. Seeds are sent out in late February & again in early Spring 2009. Just in time to plant!

The reasons to participate:
It takes less than 30 minutes.
It's easy.
Free Sunflower seeds for planting or buy your own ~ LEMON Queen only because the bees love this sunflower.
No knowledge of bees required! Great learning opportunity! You are helping research the plight of the honey bee.

The brown sunflower picture & the picture at the right are pictures from my garden last summer. Don't buy the hybrid & colored sunflowers because the bees don't like them ~ they're only produced for their color ~ not their seeds or pollen. The other picture is my son, Will & our dog Rudi-Pa-Tuti. They're standing by my beautiful Bee Balm that the honey bees go crazy for!

I hope you participate & thank you in advance for sending in your research for this important environmental study!