Kids have always been patience challenged and modern kids are even more so. The biggest challenge for unplugging them to garden outdoors is projects that grow fast enough to keep them interested. Enter the sunflower!

This extraordinarily fast grower is a North American native of the Midwest. The tall branching plant does not produce large flowers, but they do mature into nutritious seed. That is why it’s been farmed by many Native American tribes along the Missouri River flood plains for aeons. Over time they selected seed from the biggest flowers to increase the size of each kernel they grew. With the advent of modern agriculture that same selection process continued. Scientific breeding of the Mammoth sunflower resulted in the fifteen foot tall plant that every kid and adult marvels at.

Growing Mammoths from seed is awesome. You can grow them in a big forest that kids play beneath, or use them to create an enclosure open in the middle like a fort. Because they are so cheap to grow, you can cultivate a whole gang of them using kids garden tools, such as our kids trowels and cultivators to create a structural crop that defines space rather than just a single row.

There are so many opportunities to teach through sunflowers:

1) Stress the value of native plants and their relationship to Native Americans.

2) Fast germination lets kids see the result of their planting in just days.

3) Teach how to water generously with these thirsty fellows.

4) Demonstrate the importance of manure via soil improvement and mulch.

As the sunflowers mature point out how the terminal bud follows the sun. They are “photo-tropic”, which is an awareness of the sun’s position and will indicate this all day long. The final position of the flower is dictated by where it is the moment it opens, then it stays that way forever.

Over the late summer, watch the flowers pollinate then drop their petals to produce the dinner plate sized seed heads. When the seed is mature cut them off and lay flat in the sun to dry out. From these you can pick out the seeds and roast them together. Leave a few sunflowers unharvested for the birds to pick on and save a few of your dried heads to put out for winter birds many months later. And finally, like the Indians did, save a small bag of the largest seeds to plant next year. Browse our kids gardening store for other items to help get you started growing sunflowers this season!

HortiKids Staff Writer, Mo Gilmer