I grew several varieties of sunflowers this year — some grew to heights of over 10 feet tall with a flower the size of a Texas pancake — and I had all these big plans to extract the seeds from the face of the flower and roast them like a good homesteader should. I had visions of nibbling roasted sunflowers then blogging about it.
None of that happened because I was too lazy. I just cut the heads of the plants and threw them to the chickens. I think I got more satisfaction watching them deface the flower than I would have had spitting seed shells myself.
See the face of the flower? The gray part are all sunflower seeds imbedded into the plant. The yellowish part is what the chickens have picked clean. Cool, right?
All original content © 2012 by Jessie Knadler