Gardening is a favorite pastime of mine: I find it fascinating that a single seed (with a bit of water, sunshine, and positive affirmations) can blossom into a beautiful flower. And then that flower can produce more seeds for more flowers… So simple, and yet crazy when you think about it!

A few months ago, I set out to plant a patch of sunflowers. We planted a variety of sunflower seeds, some Mammoth sunflowers that were suppose to grow 12-16 ft tall!! These tiny things developed into towering flowers, and ours got to be about 12-14 ft tall! Actually incredible. We also planted smaller sunflowers to cut for bouquets. It was fascinating to watch them all grow week after week. If only I had done a timelapse! We had to install a deer fence around the seeds after planting them to make sure the deer wouldn’t eat them. Deer LOVE to eat small sunflower plants FYI.

By the end of the summer, after the yellow petals turned brown, and the big heavy sunflower head was drooping downwards, I knew it was time to harvest the seeds! I also watched Jennifer Garner’s sunflower video on Instagram and took her advice to not harvest them too early. I decided to watch a couple extra days and make sure the petals were brown and its back was yellow with a few brown specks.

Here is how I did it:

1. Wait until the petals are brown and the backs of the sunflowers are yellowish in color with a few brown spots.
2. Cut down the sunflower head, with some garden sheers.
3. Gently (or not!) scrape the seeds into a container. A large bucket, or bin works well. Make sure to grab a big vessel so you won’t miss any!
4. Spread the seeds out and let them dry overnight (a few nights are okay too, so don’t worry if you forget about them!)
5. From here, you can plant them, save them in a small paper bag to plant next year, eat them raw, or roast them!

Check out this basic roasted sunflower seed recipe below:

Directions:

1. Soak unshelled sunflower seeds overnight in a salt water solution. Use 1/4 to 1/2 cup of salt per two quarts of water.
2. Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. Spread sunflowers out on a baking dish and bake for 30-40 minutes until golden brown. Stir occasionally.
3. Enjoy!

My goal is to plant 100 sunflowers next year to make a wall of sunflowers. Now who wouldn’t want to wake up to that! Let me know what tips and tricks you have below.