Collecting Sunflower Seeds Autumn 2020

We had a few massive sunflowers this year and I was looking forward to collect their seeds. That time had finally arrrived and I'm so happy that we ended up with so many seeds.

The initial harvest:

I checked a few other spots and got more dried sunflower. So we ended up with this lot:

With this amount of sunflower heads, I have to get my little helper:

A dinner plate full of sunflower seeds.

Sunflower Seed Harvest Continuation

Continuation from the last post. We completed the sunflower seeds harvest the next day. I have my little helper doing the majority of the work.

We collected quite a few seeds from just 1 large flower and 4-5 tiny ones:

Sunflower Seeds Harvest and Cuttings

Some of the early planted sunflowers are ready for harvest and I had some spare time this evening to check and collect them. These flowers had brought joy to myself and also passer-bys as I noticed quite a few people stopped to observe and admire the flowers when they walked pass. It's really awesome to see others enjoying these flowers as much as I do. 

I took a few cuttings of the Bay tree, Lavender and Chrysanthemum as well:

These sunflowers are the ones planted at the backyard, so, not visible to passer-bys. They are still at the peak of their flowering period:

Managed to catch the dramatic ray of evening sun there. 

One solitary bee is still very busy working collecting nectar from dahlia bloom:

Bay tree cuttings:

They have since been trimmed down and the leaves are drying to be used in cooking.

The Lavender and Chrysanthemum cuttings:

LittleMsGreenies Garden Update February 2018

Summer is well underway here in Melbourne, the weather is warm (sometimes even hot), with cool mornings and nights.
The fruits are finally starting to ripen up and harvest had even started already, especially the tomatoes. Lots of activities going on in my garden in the last few weeks. Lots of harvesting, tidying up, and replanting flower seeds.
It's definitely a nice feeling seeing the garden beds looking lush and green.
All photos were taken on 2nd and 5th February 2018.

On the Garden Bed 0, the bay tree keeps on growing new leaves, I'm confident that it had survived the winter. It looks like I will have a good supply of bay leaves as well in the coming months. Lots of herbs on this garden bed, we have tarragon, oregano (not visible on the photo), sage (not visible on the photo), and stevia. The dahlia is finally flowering, we've already seen light orange, purple and dark purple coloured flowers. I'm still waiting for the sign of seeds from these flowers. The random apple trees seedlings (from last winter's compost) still survive. I didn't have the heart to pull them out, so, you'll see lots of apple seedlings throughout the photos today.

On Garden Bed 1, things are well underway, the cabbage and brocolli are growing significantly and I'm checking every few days for signs of florets. We have had a good harvest of spinach, lettuce, and the herbs from this bed. Definitely excellent types of leafy vegetables that I will plant again next spring. The nasturtium plant is growing up steadily and it is an excellent companion planting as they attracted the caterpillar, so the other plants don't get attacked too much.

The look in Garden Bed 2 was not very pretty at the end of January. Melbourne's windy weather had proven challenging for the tomatoes to grow neatly on the allocated sticks. So, after a few hours of hard work, I managed to untangle the vines and run them properly up the sticks.

We have had ongoing harvest of tomatoes, left right and center.

Also on the Garden Bed 2, the corn and chilies are growing, I even saw capsicum flowers started to bloom this morning. It's going to be exciting time ahead.

The corn plants are showing the corn. It's my first time planting corn, so, I can't wait to see how this will turn out.

On Garden Bed 3, the radishes that I planted earlier had bolted. We collected the seeds and replanted them. It looks like they have started sprouting. I'm giving them another chance, not giving up on them yet. We shall see how this batch turns out. 

The carrots are slow growing on this bed for some reason, we haven't had any good harvest yet.

But, I planted some more seeds in there, hoping they will turn out successful.

The Kipfler potatoes were a good harvest, it was a bit challenging to dig them out without bruising them, but we tried to be as gentle as we can (as gentle as a 3 year old boy can be, that is).

Some of the smaller potatoes were planted back.

On Garden Bed 4, the beans are so glorious, indeed they enjoy the sun. They grow bushier when there was a hot day. 

We have had a few harvest of the green and purple beans. And now starting to see the snake beans and adzuki beans being ready for harvest.

The large photo on the top left corner is one of the many surprised tomato plants that grew in the garden. They grew from the tomato kitchen scrap that I planted as compost material around the garden last winter. Look at the size of it. Not bad for a freebie!

The pomegranate has 4 fruits, that are still green.

Bell Chilies are gigantic, I bet they really love heat, these 2 are positioned on the west side of the garden.

The photo on the bottom right hand side is the mandarin pipsqueak with a surprised tomato plants (again), apple tree seedling (also from kitchen scrap, apple core), and spinach cutting.

I have some excess pumpkin seedlings this spring, so, on top of the climbing pumpkin on Garden Bed 2, I planted the extra seedlings on the unused part of the garden. The soil on that area is not good, but, it looks like they are thriving in there. Lots of male flowers already appearing. I keep on checking every morning to see if there is any female flower.

The flowers on the front garden is in full bloom now. We have lots of solitary bees fluttering about from flower to flower, mostly the lavender, sunflower and zinnia. I hope there will be more bees here, but I've only seen one or two at the same time in the garden.

A few days after these photos were taken, I planted some borage seeds on this section, hoping to attract more bees.

Sunflower Seeds Harvest 19th January 2018 with little helper

This is a late post, because we're too busy enjoying the late arriving summer here in Melbourne.

A few weeks ago, after weeks of anticipation, the sunflower seeds were ready for harvest.

So, I thought it would be a good activity for toddler and luckily for me he was keen to help.

We got lots of seeds, some were planted back and the rest were stored for next year.