Attack of the Giant Sunflowers!!

Last year, we planted some different sunflower varieties at the end of some of our garden rows and let them go to seed for various reasons. This spring the seeds that had dropped started to come up in our Alaska peas and other veggies.

Rather than pull them up, we decided to let them go. When fall rolls around and they die, we will chop them up and return them to the soil, but for now we'll enjoy the beauty they offer and let our Potawatomi lima beans crawl up their massive stalks.

The sunflowers we planted last year were tall and short, yellow and burgundy, single-head and multi-headed, so far this year, they all seem to be quite tall - the tallest over ten feet - multi-headed, and yellow, though there is some maroonish burgundy showing through on some of the petals.

I assume they've all been hybridized and that's what we are seeing. It will be curious to see how the genetics sort out in next years generation.