If you have ever wanted to grow giant sunflowers here is a trick I learned from a 4 time 4-H fair winner that has grown sunflowers over 20 inches in diameter! Check out our new clothing line! http:www.freshpickedapparel.com
Sunflowers are truly amazing plants. Our natural soil is very sandy and every year sunflowers grow in this stuff almost devoid of nutrients and without water. A couple of days ago a squirrel chewed one in half, or so I thought. I went out today and although the plant has fallen over, it's STILL GROWING! The top few inches have bent upwards, it's growing toward the sun and has a healthy yellow head on it, and all that's still connected is about 1/4" of fibers on one side.
A couple of years ago I grew a Sunflower 24 inches across and about 12 foot tall. Put Chicken Manure in the soil, and water everyday... That's what I do.
Hi, l watched a chap who grows them for a living and his advice was to plant seeds into the ground because they have a long tap root and while you will get a flower when sown into a pot the results will be better from direct sowing. I have 3 that self seeded and about 100, some sown into pots, some kitchen roll inners and some sown directly. The ones that self seeded have very large leaves. Mine are Titan which are large single flower heads. Another thing the chap said, the best ones to grow are the single giants. Thanks for the video
Right! That's exactly what happened to me. I started them in a seed starter and solo cups. I must have kept them in the cups to long because they didn't grow as tall and as huge of sunflowers.
I started growing sunflowers this year. The soil in the bed I have them in is not the greatest because I’m just building it up. My sunflowers are absolutely gorgeous
How cute....your daughter in the background ❤️❤️❤️ she's like a little garden fairy❤️ Great advice. Thanks for sharing. Going to try it with my sunflowers too!!
Thanks to your 4-H friend and yourself for the great tip on growing larger heads on Sunflower plants. I appreciate it. I hope to grow Sunflowers next season in my new home's back yard.
I just wanted to say thank you for all of your informative videos. I started my first garden in about 12 years and went way past my original scope of a couple small water troughs. I built three 4x8 foot raised beds and filled twelve 25 gallon grow bags, and with your help my tomato plants are already over 5 foot tall after going in the ground a little more than a month ago!
Thank you Janette for sharing with Luke so he could share with us. I am not really looking for giant flowers, but I am growing sunflowers for the first time this year and still learn a thing or two about sunflower plants. Sunflowers are my husband's favorite flower (it's a childhood thing) and I just can't wait to get them to bloom! The plants are tall and healthy and showing the flower buds...so freaking excited!!
Thanks Luke! This is right on time. I just planted my very first sunflower seeds. I'm in Central Texas, so I'm sure I still have enough season left to grow them. I will certainly give this trick a try!
I have about 10 or 12 sunflowers that are around 4 to 5 foot tall. I will be pruning them tomorrow! Thanks for the information.....I’m a new subscriber but have been watching for about a year. Love your content
THANKS Jannette!!! Planting sunflower seeds now for fall. I'm excited to try this - never heard of this until now. Yippee! Something new to try out in the garden. Appreciate you passing this on to us subscribers Luke - you're the best!
I got some worms from a guy about 3 years ago. Had them in a bin and grew many many more. I scattered them about my garden area(probably about 3 months after getting them) and now they are everywhere!! I can dig up one shovel of dirt and there will be 20 worms in there. They really do multiply quickly!! I noticed a huge difference after just the first year.
Thanks for the advice Luke . I’m waiting in line to buy some garlic from you . I plan on planting a lot of it . I’m sure your going to do a harvest video soon on them .
Thank you for sharing ❤️💗❤️ Going out tomorrow and get to work.... SENDING A BRIGHT WHITE LIGHT OF LOVE TO SURROUND THE UNIVERSE 🤗💞💖🤗 AND EVERYONE 🤗❣️❣️🤗
Very interesting,I must go out and take a look. I always just let them do there thing. Thanks for the plug for 4-H as it is a great group for the youth ( in Canada I believe from 6-21 is the main age category ) which includes so many options to work on.
Cool - that's exactly how I'm growing mine this year - without seeing this - just based off my own idea. Cool! Plus all the pruning goes to the rabbits, which then make the fertilizer for the gardens. Also the sunflower seeds are super healthy for rabbits to eat, so the gardens get all those nutrients too with the 2 hour composting technique known as rabbit manure :D
Ty Luke! I learned something new today. I grew some from a packet from a dollar store. Every year I saved the biggest head's seeds. I didn't even know what I was doing really. Lol. Blessings!!
Think its time to see a video on all the plans that prune like tomatoes , sunflowers and cucumbers. like how many plants get pruned by taking off suckers ?
Thanks Luke for this very informative video! I certainly marvel at the ability of the sunflower to build its own biomass. We got some pretty bad soil this year for our raised beds, in which most of our crop failed. But in one bed we planted sunflowers and marigold from seed and both are doing tremendously well. One of them is already over seven foot tall. Never fertilized it, and as I said most other things that were planted in this soil died pretty quickly.
No way! It does make sense, but I never would have thought of that. Very cool tip, thanks to you and her for sharing the info. Thumbs up for you and your PR Director hanging out in the background.
I had these caterpillars that were turning the leaves into a brown shell. a light dusting of food grade diatomaceous earth on the leaves have ran them off
I have lost count of my replantings. I've read that direct-seeding is best, but the birds & squirrels keep taking them, so I have some started in peat pots, now.
I am growing sunflowers this year and went out to prune them based on your tip and I don't have any "suckers" to prune. Mine look just like yours and are pretty tall. So maybe all varieties don't produce "suckers"? Or perhaps I just don't have any yet...
Super great tip my friend! I'm growing Mammoth Sunflowers this year for the first time and they are 9+ feet tall at the moment (and still not developing a head yet). I will try this method of sniping off the sucker branches to direct the energy. This method is the same way we grow giant buds on cannabis plants. We snip of the sucker branches at the end of veg/pre-flower to direct energy into making bigger and better buds.
HEEEEY!!! I got a problem guys! I ran out to my garden @ 5am this morning (because I was excited after watching this video last night) and upon checking out my MAMMOTH sunflower (she's doing VERY well by the way), I noticed that I did not have ANY sucker branches. I have plenty of leaves, but no sucker branches coming out, in between the leaves? I also have "Firecatcher" sunflowers next to it, and the Firecatchers do not have sucker branches either. What is going on here? Is it normal for a sunflower plant not to have sucker branches? Is it the because of the certain strain of sunflower I'm growing, that it does not have suckers? Thanks for the help in advance guys!
I'm growing them for the first time as the 4 sisters garden. Autumn beauties. Planted 4 but dang birds got one of the seedlings. I'll have to try pruning tomorrow.
Wow, that is so amazing, so glad to have this information. Thank you, and please thank her again for sharing!!! So quick story, been trying to grow sunflowers every year for almost 8 years, and i have been so discouraged because as soon as they get big enough, maybe a few inches tall, they would always get eaten my something. This year has been my first successful year growing sunflowers and the biggest one is taller then my husband (6ft2in). and so we have finally found a place to move that is bigger and we can do a better little urban homestead (so very excited) and i've been worried that the sunflowers wont bloom before we move and i very much want to see them! so my husband started pruning them, in the hopes that they will bloom faster. No bloom yet but there are 2 that have developed flower heads, so i'm checking everyday. What was so interested to me, was that when they are not pruned sunflowers are a little flexible right, but we noticed that once we pruned some of the lower leaves, within minutes the stalk firmed up and it stood with very little flex. This was so fascinating to me because the plant adapted to the change and made itself stronger to protect itself. Anyway, thanks for sharing, and reading my little story. I just love sunflowers!!!
Crazy! This is my first year growing mammoth sunflowers and they are about 5 - 7 ft tall already. I'm doing this as soon as I get home from work today!
Pruning totally works! First year i did this i had several that were around 14-15 inches across.... 16 ft high btw.... Russian mammoths are truly MAMMOTH!
Thank you so much , very informative, I will try , I appreciate your video very much . You look so young ,where did you get to know so much about gardening, your passionate for sure .keep it up. Ferdinand from Canada
Thanks for an excellent video. I subscribed to you I think on the first one of yours I saw. You're interesting and knowledgeable. I didn't have suckers on my sunflowers. I did cut off dead and dying leaves as they grew tall. I'm going to try this method you described next year using my best seeds. Tell your 4H friend, thank you for sharing!
Bees betta have my honey. In all seriousness I planted some Vanilla Ice that are doing great. Some Sunshine’s looking good. And 2 mammoths one was a twin sadly only one came of it and it’s sprout looks weak. :( The other one is doing great and I’ll have to transport it this week. I’m doing them in pots lol.
Thank you for your video. I did wonder if I had to prune mine that way like my tomatoes. I’m growing teddy bear sunflowers but they have multiple heads. Will try the mammoth variety too.
