|
A regular and much valued customer for many years, Liam Kearns, sowed some sunflower seeds purchased from the 8th Day earlier in the year. Here's his account of the process and results in pictures.
The story of the Zion Garden sunflowers
Being a member of the Zion Gardening Project, I wanted to experiment and do some flower growing in order to complete an online gardening course. I had been wondering if the sunflower seeds which I normally used in my muesli, bought from 8th Day, would grow into the enormous full-grown flowering plants. I decided to experiment. In late March 2005 I planted a handful of sunflower seeds in a narrow compost tray, watered them in, sealed the top with clear plastic (to keep it moist) and went on holiday for a week, leaving the tray in a sunny position on my flat window sill. When I came back from holiday the seeds had almost all sprouted and reached a surprising size, struggling to get out of the plastic! (one to two inches long). I needed to get some potted right away so I brought them over to the Zion Gardening Project. I took each seedling and put it into a pot-- about 8 pots in all, with about 16 plants. I left them all on a sunny window ledge in the Zion greenhouse (I used rich compost to plant them in). I was very excited at this stage about my experiment because I know that sunflowers grow very tall and have really large flower heads. The young plants took only about four weeks to reach a big enough size to plant out in the garden (about one to two feet tall), so on week six (counting from seed stage), I planted them out in the garden, using rods and strings for support and protection from the wind. Over the time from mid April to mid August the plants grew and grew, one of them reaching over seven foot tall. One of the flower heads was over a foot in diameter. It was a real treat in the later stages, watching the flower heads develop and wondering how big each flower was going to be! The flowers made a glorious display in the Zion garden during the month of August, and many people made positive comments. I have a real sense of achievement because of my experiment--to nurture a tiny seed about half an inch long, to a large flowering plant seven foot tall.
Now turn over the page to see Liam's Sunflowers
.
|
|
