From one fistful of seeds....comes this!

[Uzi2]

This is the yield of one fistful of mammoth sunflower seeds minus about 6 heads saved for the birds, scratched into some woodchip compost, watered about four times because it was a dry spell when I planted them and the rain did the rest.

There's an average of 3000 seeds per flower head from one planted seed. The picture of the flower heads is in my other post. This was just an experiment to see the viability of planting these in the chip compost. Apparently its going to work out very well come next spring.

3000+ to 1.....Not a bad return!

Those are just my quick access ARs, the rest are in "storage"​

 

[Mountain]

Yeah, but how did you grow those loaded mags at the top of the pic?

That's a great return for a very low maintenance growing project. Where I plan to plant next spring might take a little fertilizer to get a good yield. I have some laying around, so it will be less trouble than going organic which is what I normally do. Also we had such horrible crabgrass this year it's everywhere and I'll be taking measures to prevent spreading it for next year which limits my composting.

 

[Uzi2]

Yeah, but how did you grow those loaded mags at the top of the pic?

That's a great return for a very low maintenance growing project. Where I plan to plant next spring might take a little fertilizer to get a good yield. I have some laying around, so it will be less trouble than going organic which is what I normally do. Also we had such horrible crabgrass this year it's everywhere and I'll be taking measures to prevent spreading it for next year which limits my composting.

Sunflowers have a deep root system....till the area in the late fall and lime and fertilize it to carry the nutrients deeper into the soil for spring. Any fall leaf compost is a real plus for the tilth of the soil. Mulch the leaves with a mower and till into the soil.....all plants love it.

 

[one-eyed Jack]

Wow. That's quite a haul. I tried it once, but since I let my yard pretty much grow wild, I have every critter in the neighborhood live here. They beat me to the seeds. Jack.

 

[Uzi2]

Wow. That's quite a haul. I tried it once, but since I let my yard pretty much grow wild, I have every critter in the neighborhood live here. They beat me to the seeds. Jack.

I've got the whole food chain in play here. Woodchips, compost, insects, rodents, hawks, coyotes, foxes, cats and .22LR.
Every piece of the pie gets their due.

 

[Fixxah]

Are those suckers shelled?

 

[Uzi2]

Are those suckers shelledt?

No, raw seeds right from the flower head. Shelled seeds would be a fraction of the volume pictured.

Its amazing how much energy goes into the production of one sunflower plant, stocks leaves and flower.

 

[enbloc]

Why do these "pipes" in the upper left corner resemble AR's with birdcages?...
Not to mention the mags above the outlet.
You Sir are a Genuine American Prepper...

Very nice haul!

 

[Uzi2]

Well, my final dry yield weight from my fistful of sunflower seeds, minus about ten heads left on the stalks for the birds was just over 12lbs including a couple of envelopes sent out to a couple of members here.

Those are 1gallon ziplock bags.

Pretty good for five minutes planting using only a steel rake to scratch in the seeds.

Next spring I hope to multiply this X 50 by better spacing now that I know the chip compost works so well and they'll be planted a couple of weeks earlier than this batch was.