To stop your cheap sheetpans from sproinging in the oven: put them in while the preheat is happening. You'll a little better browning from the preheated pan, and the slow expansion of the metal won't cause it to warp!
That whole process of first simmering in salt water and only then baking the seeds works super well for pumpkin seeds too! Although usually just a rolling boil for 10 minutes or so, for them. We always save the seeds after carving pumpkins at Halloween and have them as a treat like that - they get sooooo good, and you can eat the whole shell of those too!
Had several like that last year and would have this year, but the deer ate them once the drought hit. They even ate hostas. I have one that is hanging lower every day after the one and only rain we had. Last year we had a heck of a time cutting them down and this spring tripped over the stump. They do get big.
A bunny moved in to my garden during the drought so since she only came out in the mornings and evenings I put an alarm on plants I didn`t want her to eat and she ate the bush snap beans and black eyed pea leaves. I left water bowls out and frogs put eggs in it so I made them a shaded puddle. My garden and yard became a zoo before the drought ended and the bunny became friendly and would hop right up to me. She left for winter but came back about 5 days ago looking for green beans.
Hey Kevin, I have an interesting question for you. Do you think that some pollen remains in a large enough quantity that it ends up in bags of sunflower seeds after harvesting? Do you think the dust in sunflower seed bags could include remnants of actual sunflower pollen? Thanks. It doesn't look like you responded to any questions posted, but I'll take a chance.
I grew a bunch of sunflowers this year, they didn’t get past knee height. I had one that was producing seeds, woke up yesterday to find a squirrel got to it, one seed was left in the carnage pile. I picked it up, admired its beauty and ate it. Before I bought my house the previous owners were squirrel feeders, it’s been a battle with them.
I have entire garden of vegetables ,fruit. It took me a couple years to grow it but I don’t even need to go grocery shopping most of the time for fruits and vegetables
i just bought sunflower seeds and i thought of finding how it is made or harvested. Your video is on time since it has just been uploaded!!! what a timing :D
I wish you had weighed the Sol-sized sunflower head before removing the seeds.... that would have been a fun data point! Massive, gorgeous volunteer sunflower. Hope the Giant Sunflower Joy gets spread all around with your seed packs!🌻
Not how that works... just because that sunflower was big doesn't mean all the seeds are going to make big sunflowers... the dude is basically scamming people by making them pay 10 dollars for something that should be quite a bit less than a dollar.
You can actually make flour from the stems! Also, the entire sunflower head is completely edible & delicious when cooked up with some oil & a little seasoning!
My little (under 5 ft tall) grandma would grow sunflowers to roast the seeds for us kids. I remember her in her garden with a machete (almost as big as her) chopping down her 12-foot-tall sunflowers. She would save some of the biggest seeds from the biggest plants for replanting the next year. Great childhood memories. She was a real pistol! lol
You could have left the bottom in the ground as a trellis instead of sticking it back in. I use mine as trellis as they grow. I cut all the leaves and side shoots below 6 feet and they usually grow more than 10 feet.
I miss my sunflowers i had, i had 2 massive sunflowers and one that was probably the same size as the one in the beginning of this video, plus a bunch more in my backyard. Been taking the seeds and re growing them year after year and I like to plant random massive sunflower seeds in random spots. The best one I planted was at an elementary school field and and they ended up building a little fence around it to keep it protected. They recently cut it down so hopefully they kept the seeds and will keep going. They dont know who planted it so i just kept my mouth shut and i may go for 2 or 3 sunflowers next year lol.... no idea if its illegal but I'll do it again i dont care come get me cops.
Most of my sunflower seeds have been eaten by the birds but I'm happy that they have grown so huge and that the birds had a feast! Give nature back what it wants to take is something I've learned.
I`m growing some from bird seeds this year. Last year I planted a few dozen and armadillos uprooted nearly all of them but several lived. The bumblebees really liked them. I put a dried head on the old washing machine where I feed the birds and they threw it off. But you can plant a bunch from bird seeds that have black and regular striped sunflower seeds in it. These he grew are Large Mammoth Grey Stripe Sunflower Seeds (Helianthus annuus).
I noticed those ginormous sunflowers in your garden tour video. The look like something out of a kid’s storybook. Jack and the ginormous sunflower rather than beanstalk. How cool.
i didnt grow any sunflowers on purpose ever..... but accidentily it seems 1 did sprout and grow from a birdseed this year so the coming year i will be using its seeds to grow sunflowers....
Amazing and impressive sunflower head! The seeds look like they are a grey stripe variety, which I have grown this year but they are nowhere near the size of your monster. Thanks for the tip on soaking the seeds, I will definitely be following this for my seeds. I'm actually going to try and make soup stock using the stalks etc. of my flowers (before it dries up and dies off).
I absolutely fell in love with sunflowers the last couple years, i always take a picture under them when they're done, to me it looks like a shower head lol
What kind of sunflower was this that he planted to produce that massive head? I get that he sold the "special seeds" from the one he grew, but what did he /plant/? Is it a trade secret being developed by Epic Gardening? A Mongolian Giant? Some kind of Mammoth? What variety was it?
Wish I had seen this before I harvested my sunflowers! They were so beautiful but didn't get particularly large before they started to die off (multiple varieties) so I didn't have huge hopes for a big harvest going in. I did end up getting a fair amount of seeds, but they were kind of small and the seeds inside dried up too much during roasting. I think they definitely would've benefitted from that pre-boil step. I had no idea that was a thing, so thanks! Can't wait to try again next year, maybe with some of your seeds! 😄
Did Jacques eat the shell & all? 😂 Waste not, want not! The sunflower looked like a shower head when you cut all the leaves off. Seeds sold out too fast!
EDIT: Out of stock already! Sorry everyone...I'll have to grow more next year ;) Grab some of these seeds here: shop.epicgardening.com/products/giant-sunflower-seeds-limited-supply
Just checking back on this kind of sunflower... are there any new seeds availabile yet? If not, can you let me know what kind of sunflower variety this is?🙏🙏🙏
I grew one Russian Mammoth like that a couple years ago. The birds got most of the seeds. I don’t remember the seeds looking like that. Small black ones with no decent edible bit. The stalk was huge. Can dry and use as a walking stick.
Wini walbaum (gardener from Chile and friend of charles dowding)roasted the whole head of sunflower like an artichoke on the grill.I have to try it. Thanks for the tip of boiling the seeds beforehand, it all makes sense,thats what I was missing.
Tried doing this with my teenage son this year. Grew a huge mammoth, waited then harvested it… all of the seeds were empty. No kernels! So disappointing. Planning to try again next year!
How do you know when your plant is ready to harvest? Inhale some that look similar. I pulled one seed out and it looked good. Do you think the whole head is ready?
I grew about 20 different sunflower plants, three different varieties. About a month ago, I saw unusual movement in the plants! It was like a seen out of the first Predator movie when they first showed the Predator. I finally noticed large green wild parrots eating the heads of the plants. (They were the same color as the leaves.) I counted about 8 of them. They stayed for about 30 minutes and flew away at the same time. Two days later, only 3 came back to eat more. Now the squirrels are biting off the heads and finishing them off. (The heads were only about 2”-4” in diameter.) 🦜🦜🦜🦜🦜🦜🦜🦜
I grew russian mammoth sunflowers this year and while the flowers were big, my deeply countryside raised parents just keep saying how the seeds are "not ready" or "stunted" or "no meat" when compared to "chinese sunflowers". But it is ironic that such large sunflowers produce relatively small sized seeds (compared to comercial sunflower seed snacks).
How long do you need to wait from harvesting the seeds until planting ? (assuming the growing season is long enough / ignoring seasons) or can they be planted straight away ?
Nice Keven, that was a huge head of Sunflower seeds.👨🌾 I think you should leave som seeds in the flower for the chickens, an empty head is like an empty box 😀😀😀🇦🇺
There is a Prepper who made a video about different ways to harvest the sunflower plant. One was to harvest the inside of the stalk to make a flour, of which he made cookies. 😳
