Planting Sunflower Seeds

[LovinLife]

I want to plant a field of large sunflowers this year. I also have chickens and guineas which free range. Do my sunflower seeds have a chance once I plant them?

 

[bootstrap]

depends on the situation, i know chickens love to be in freshly tilled ground. I know they will not transplant well if you try and start them first.

 

[wifezilla]

I give em a snowball's chance in Miami.

I would put poultry wire around the planting area.

 

[lesa]

Without a fence, I second the "snowball". First they will dig up the seeds- in the event that they miss one, they will eat the sprout...

 

[wsmoak]

They'll have to be fenced out until the seedlings get going, however... I've found they're not very determined as long as they have other stuff to eat, and some deer netting will keep them out of places I don't want them in (like the blueberry plants!)

To save my blueberries I used 'natural' posts -- some small oak trunks from trees we cleared -- makes it a little better looking than T-posts, but those also work. The deer netting will catch on pretty much anything from tree bark to the bumps on the T-posts, and you can use a strategic zip tie or two to hold it if it won't stay.

Good luck! I have some volunteer sunflowers here and there that I'm sure the wild birds planted for me, so I'm letting those grow to see what we get.

-Wendy

 

[Warthog]

I usually soak me seeds in water for a couple of days, just find that they germinate better that way.

Haven't found the chickens to be a problem yet, maybe saying that I have just tempted fate.