Anyone grow sunflowers?

BostonBuds said:

I ended up with 4 sunflower plants 2 varieties, two are 3' tall with multiple small flowers that are already opening up and the birds are picking clean, and two that are 5' tall really thick stalk and large flower still closed. I actually tried to water them with nutes and they started looking sick so I use only tap water and they are fine. I never harvested them before, can I cut them once they open and save the seeds after? Usually the birds eat them because I don't pay attention.

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Once all the petals have died and the back of the flower turns brown is when you harvest. I just grow them for the flowers so I only harvest some seeds to grow the next year. I leave the rest for the birds. I have a mini wildlife sanctuary in my backyard.






This one is ten feet tall. It hasn't flowered yet. It came up on it's own right next to where one came up last year. The one last year was so big that I had to cut it off at the ground because digging the root ball up would have disturbed my raspberries.