harvesting sunflower seeds

[Nathan]

Can anyone advise on when and how to harvest sunflower seeds?  At the moment the tiny flowerlets are just falling off.  Do I wait for the seeds to dry? 

[Nathan]

[jennym]

When the back of the head of the sunflower has turned brown, you can harvest the seeds, just by rubbing them off, and they will fall off easily when ripe.

[dingerbell]

My sunflowers have been fabulous, standing like sentinels at the back of my lottie. I planted trhem for fun and am now blesssed with 10 huge dinner plate sized flower heads standing proudly on 8-10 foot stalks. I don't know what to do with the seed but I'm sure the local birds will find them ;D

[daisymay]

I woke up on Saturday morning and, as usual, first thing I did was look out the back at the garden and my 8ft4 sunflower had snapped during the night  :'( :'( was the first one I have ever grown and was quite upset actually!

Guess you cannot harvest the seed once it has been cut? I have it in water in the lounge at the moment.

[Doris_Pinks]

Daisymay you can harvest the seed when it has been cut, just wait till all the petals have died back and leave it somewhere to dry!
I attach my flower heads to my trellis in the winter, the birds love em!

[dibberxxx]

last year i had loads of sunflower seeds to many to keep , put the spare heads whole heads on the bird table and the birds loved them kept them very happy  :) :)

[daisymay]

oh great! that was kind of the plan - extra food for the winter birds, so glad it won't go to waste.

[Amazin]

I must have very posh birds then - they don't touch 'em... nor any of the soft fruits I grow.

[Twospot Ladybird]

Hi Amazin, when you say the birds don't touch them, do you mean the seeds that are still attatched to the sunflowers themselves or that they just don't eat sunflower seeds?

[Maddy]

I grew dwarf Sunflowers this year, hope the birdies don't think I'm trying to short change them  ;)

M.

[daveandtara]

amazin, the birds never eat my soft fruit either!
raspberries, cherries, grapes and blackberries. i've never had to net them, strange isn't it?

[Amazin]

D&T -  yup, I've got rasps, blackbs, taybs, elderberries and even passionfruit to name but a few supposed courses on the beaky banquet menu, and have never had to protect any of them.

2SL - both! I've taken the seeds off my finished sunflowers and have left them out to dry. The birds are more than welcome to 'em (though I'm down to my last 23 million) but so far, no takers.

[Twospot Ladybird]

I think it might be that there is enough natural food around for them. I did have a suggestion if it was just the seed attatched to the flower head that they were refusing.

[janebb]

Are the common or garden sunflower seeds which come from sunflowers grown in the garden edible to humans, or only to birds?  I love sunflower seed bread but wondered if they came from a special sort of sunflower?

[Twospot Ladybird]

Hi Janebb, I've just googled Edible Sunflower seed varieties and found this:

http://www.indiangyan.com/books/healthbooks/food_that_heal/sunflower_seeds.shtml

Hope this helps.

[Nathan]

Hello Amazin

Please tell me about the passion fruit as I would love to grow them.  HOW, WHEN, WHERE.