More sunflower seeds sprouting in a ziplock bag.

With better weather beaming down on us, I finally got my sunflower seeds out with the confidence that they would not get drowned by excessive rain. I took a few of this and a few of that, then a few more of these and some of those, and ended up with seven different ziplock baggies with several sunflower seeds in each.

48 hours later, I held the bags up to the light to see if anything had happened, and gosh, things had happened! The majority of the seeds had germinated, giving me a mixture of healthy, green sprouts with seeds that had only roots growing out, looking oddly sperm-like when looked at with the light as a background.

Thought this was cute because this sunflower sprout looks like it's wearing a beret! Oui?

A major potting exercise had to be executed immediately, and the sprouting seeds were put into their new temporary homes – individual little pots – where they can grow a little stronger while I have a few days to prepare their permanent homes in the garden.

This is just the first phase of my experiment growing sunflowers. So far, I’ve only grown the “regular” sunflowers, with a fair success rate. This time, I’m trying the smaller varieties, just to see how they grow. The bigger ones will follow soon.

Piece of sunflower heaven, here I come! Snails, caterpillars and rampaging dogs had better stay away…

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