Allotment Sunflower 1st of 2012 04-07-2012

That's going to be a nice healthy one...Do you keep the seeds Balcony...I dry mine, and give them to the Chickens in Winter for the oil to build up their plumage...Or you can shuck them if you have the patience, and eat the kernel yourself, tasty but time consuming...

The flower is completely open now & is noticeable at quite a distance!

We do keep some seeds for sowing the coming year but mainly Gerry grows them for his aviary birds to eat during the winter. He may even give them to the wild birds if he thinks he has enough. Seems the birds didn't eat as much this winter because he had at least a bucketful of seeds left over in May. He brought 1/2 a bucket down to the plot where I sowed them in 2 beds.

I was most surprised when I arrived in Spain in 1972 & saw that the Spanish youth consumed them in great quantities! To my mind at that time they were something you gave to your hamster or other rodent or to birds - but humans didn't eat them! They have great ability in putting them in their mouths & spitting out the shucks! Where a few of them gather they can carpet the ground with shucks in a very short time! Though having said that it seems like the latest generation of Spaniards have lost their taste for Sunflower seeds & don't eat a fraction of what their parents/grandparents used to. As my wife is Spanish she likes to eat them & hasn't lost her ability to put them in her mouth & spit out the shucks! I save a few heads each year for her!