Grammy on the Go
June is here — it’s finally warm enough to spend more time outdoors and enjoy planting a garden! The grandkids will love to help you plan and plant veggies and flowers and then watch them grow throughout the summer season.
I am going to focus this column on planting sunflowers, the largest flower in my garden. I plant these with the grandkids’ help every year and they look forward to the tradition. The seeds are larger for their small hands to hold, making it easier for them to plant in the soil. The other nice thing about sunflowers is how quickly they grow. It is so fun to watch them stretch up into the sky. The flowers turn their faces toward the sun, often tracking it from East to West on a very sunny day (a plant characteristic known as heliotropism).
We plant a whole garden of sunflowers, planting two or three rows in a mixture of colors. I especially like the mammoth sunflowers. These huge yellow flowers are often 12 inches in diameter. Seeds can be found online or in garden stores. Once you start to do this every year, you can collect and use seeds from the previous season. Plant seeds here in NEO after the last frost of the year, usually around the end of May or the beginning of June. 
I begin our sunflower garden by letting the kids lightly rake the area to be used, plus add a few new inches of topsoil. I make a few rows in the soil and let them plant the seeds about six inches apart. As the plants sprout and grow, these are then thinned (choosing those that are the healthiest) to an approximate distance of 12 inches between each plant.
The weekly growth of sunflowers is staggering and the kids can measure and record each sunflower’s progress. The children also like to be involved in the care of the flowers. Weeding is easy for them to accomplish, as the sunflower is plain to distinguish from unwanted wildflowers and other intruding plants. Allow enough room between rows for the children to walk and pick the weeds around the stronger sunflower plant stalks. Watering is minimal. If the grandkids come to visit their flowers, I always let them use the sprinkler. But if not watered, the sunflowers seem to thrive on whatever nature seems to provide.
Soon, the plants surpass the child’s height before blooming in late summer, or early fall into their magnificent yellow and orange heads. I usually will cut a few for them to take home and place in a vase.
At the end of the season, you can remove some of the seeds for eating. We sprinkle on salt and roast for 20 minutes at 250 degrees. It is also fun to watch the birds come and pluck out the seeds, spitting out the shells. And, of course, it is important to save some seeds for next year, dry them and wait until another spring to continue the sunflower tradition!
