Sunflowers are joyful flowers.
They brighten up a garden and are a symbol of summer.
Sadly, sunflowers have quite a short bloom, but they are worth planting for a few reasons - they are beautiful and they are edible for both humans and birds.
Sunflowers are ready to be harvested when the petals die and the flower head points to the ground; the flower head will slightly change colour too once it has started to die.
The sunflower seeds should look black and white, and will have stripes down them.
The seeds are in the middle of the flower head. Instead of throwing the sunflower head in the bin, you can harvest the seeds first.
When harvesting the seeds, you could give them to wildlife in your garden - animals like birds and squirrels eat sunflower seeds. Bird seeds can be expensive to buy, so giving the sunflower seeds to the birds and squirrels and saving and storing them can help save money.
You can also save sunflower seeds for next year to plant in the garden, saving seeds will help you save money - you won't need to spend money next year on sunflower seeds or sunflower plants if you harvest your own.
Store the seeds in a paper bag for next year.
Being connected to nature in our garden can show us that nature provides us for what we need for the next growing season, we don't need to spend lots of money in our gardens to benefit from nature and grow a lot, during this time of year - late summer and going into Autumn - it is a time of harvest, harvesting from this years hard work and harvesting for the seeds that will begin the next season.
It shows us that in our modern world, we tend to overcomplicate things, it can also show us how wasteful we can be, yet being connected to the growing seasons can show us how and why not to be wasteful, it shows us that nature already does and can provide us and wildlife with plenty.
A dying or dead plant, including sunflowers, isn't a useless plant, it provides food and the seeds of tomorrow to continue the cycle of planting more sunflowers and harvesting more sunflower seeds in the near future.
Instead of throwing away your dead sunflowers, make use of them. 🌻