How to Grow Your Own Wild Bird Seed
The most popular native bird seed in America is the sunflower, Helianthus annus. Growing sunflowers benefits gardeners in many ways. They are a beautiful addition to the garden and come in a variety of colors and heights. Sunflowers provide nectar for bees. Squirrels love to eat sunflower seeds. You can watch birds eating right from the flower and, if you plant a large enough crop, you can hang the heads in the garage and have seeds for mid-winter bird feeding. Does this Spark an idea?
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Instructions
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Select a variety of different sunflower heights and colors. This will stagger the bloom as well as adding variety to the garden.
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Start sunflowers indoors two to three weeks before the annual last date of frost for your area by filling waxed paper cups with light potting soil or seed starter mix, placing seed 1 inch below the surface and watering. Allow soil to almost dry out between watering.
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Prepare a full sun location that receives 6-8 hours a day for your sunflower garden. Select a well drained location, loosen the soil down 1-2 feet, working in compost and manure.
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Plant in three transplants per square foot. Add a few seeds throughout the garden at the same time. Every few weeks, continue to add a few seeds to the sunflower garden for an ongoing, staggered bloom.
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Mulch around the seedlings to protect them. Fertilize lightly every three to four weeks with a slow release, high-nitrogen, organic fertilizer.
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Harvest the heads by cutting 4 to 6 inches below the flower head when the back of the sunflower turns yellow. Hang the flower heads in bunches from the stems from a garage rafter or other protected location. Wrap a paper bag around the flowers, secure the bag on the plants by stapling the open part of the bag closed around the stem.
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Tips & Warnings
Cover some flowers with bird netting to preserve the seed for later in the winter.
Put the sunflowers where you can enjoy watching the birds feed in the summer.
Squirrels are very hard to deter. Try fencing your whole garden, including the top, with chicken wire.
Another squirrel deterrent is wrapping the head in fine, metal, hardware cloth.
Because sunflowers are a very attractive bee pollen source, do not spray the flowers with insecticide.
References
Resources
- Photo Credit sunflower image by Lucid_Exposure from Fotolia.com
