Sunflower seeds

[paulsharvey]

Ace Hardware, atleast around here, sells 40# bags of black oil sunflower seeds, like $22/bag. Maybe you dont get 80% germination, but seed heavy, and you'll get good coverage.

 

[paulsharvey]

Do deer like sunflowers? I have a little patch in my bottom that might be nice for this. Dual purpose, can bring flowers home to mama and feed the deer. Anything special that needs to be done to grow them?

Deer, turkeys, rabbits, crows, about anything will eat sunflowers at some point of the growth cycle. My soil is pretty mild acidic, 5.5, so, lime is needed to atleast 6.0 or 6.5. But for prep, lots of folks just disc the area, and broadcast sunflower seeds, and then drag to cover. Yep, gonna loose 75% to birds, so plant heavy.

 

[LHF2019]

Good to know. For some reason I don't get a lot of deer down there in the summer, they go elsewhere. I think I will plant about a 10 x 40 plot, will that be sufficient to stay in front of the deer?

They might go elsewhere now but plant something they like and you might be surprised by how many deer will show up. Just have to plant the plot and let us know how it turns out.