I had this brilliant idea to grow sunflowers and harvest the seeds for my birdfeeder. As brilliant ideas go, I failed to foresee some of the consequences of my genius.
Growing the sunflowers was easy: germinate seeds, grow in sunny location, prop flowers so stems don’t break under weight of large blooms. Then all I had to do was wait for the flowers to mature and the seeds to develop. Then I could snip off the wilting flowers, hang them in a well-ventilated location and wait for the seeds to be ready for gathering.
I had read that birds and squirrels would quickly get wind of the ripening seeds and pick them before I’m ready to harvest. So, I figured that hanging the wilting flowers in our screened patio (where there’s sufficient ventilation so the flowers don’t grow molds) would be fine. Not.
A few mornings later, when I opened the front door to water the plants in the patio, a surprised squirrel (who was as shocked as I was — the critter promptly dropped the dried flower he had in his jaw) scampered from where I hung the drying sunflowers.
Mr. Squirrel chewed out a large enough hole on the screen for him to slip into the patio and harvest my sunflower seeds for himself. In fact, he had chewed out several unsightly holes on the nylon screen. Argh!
Ergo, my brilliant plan to grow my own sunflower birdseeds left me with several consequences, er, lessons:
- I now know that squirrels will stop at nothing to get to their sunflower seeds. Nylon screens? Small time.
- I’ve decided that it’s simpler to just buy a bag of sunflower birdseeds than grow and harvest them from scratch. Doing the math, I would need to plant sunflowers all over our backyard and all around the house to harvest a regular bag of birdseeds.
- Regardless, I still love having those gorgeous bright yellow blooms in my garden. I’ll most likely grow sunflowers just for the sunflowers.
- I’ve recently replaced the chewed-out screen and now possess the knowledge (and the tool) to repair chewed-out screens.
Chalk one up for the Gardener Wife -slash- Tooltime Lady -slash- Renaissance Mom.
