There’s always been something about sunflowers that have intrigued me. Maybe it’s their bright yellow petals, the way they can turn to follow the sun, or that you can eat the seeds from their big center. Whatever it is that has drawn me to them has always put a smile on my face when I see them.
You might remember that I shared how I wanted to start my own sunflower field. Wellll, let’s jus say I tried. And this year, I’m writing it off as a trial and error attempt. So here’s the thing, we cleared about 3/4 of an acre and I had this grand idea of having a bunch of sunflowers. It all sounded great in theory, but the reality was, it was already too late into the season. By the time we found someone to help clear the land and have the equipment we needed, planting seeds would have never worked. So, what did I do? I called around to local greenhouses and found one that had a bunch of seedlings available to plant. They were already around 12-18 inches tall and my goal was to get these plants, transplant them, and have some sort of sunflowers to admire. Hmm, not so much. You see, this summer was an extremely hot, and dry summer I might add. I think the whole month of July we maybe only saw one day of rain. So what happens when you transplant 250 sunflower plants in the dead heat? They don’t make it. No matter how much we watered them or tended to them, it was a lost cause. They went into shock after we planted them and there was only a few that held on strong. Lesson to the story…if at first you don’t succeed, you try, try, again (along with don’t transplant things in the crazy heat). And that’s exactly what we’ll do next year. But this time, we’ll do it the right way. With plenty of time for those little seeds to grow and hope that we actually see some blooms.
So anyway, enough about my failed attempt #reallife. There are other farmers out there that are great at actually planting a successful sunflower field. And for that, I’m grateful. I love that we have places around us that we can enjoy and spend some time creating memories.
I’ve had the chance to hang out with some great local mamas (we all met on instagram) and their adorable little ones. It was so fun that we were able to coordinate some time to check out the sunflowers. The field was so pretty and I loved the height they were. They seemed to be just the right size. I love the tall ones, but sometimes they seem so overpowering that they’re hard to enjoy for someone who stands a lot lower, like me.
I wanted to get some cute pics of the baby, but the funny thing was, all he wanted to do was eat the sunflowers. Oh, and rip off their leaves. I felt bad because he kept grabbing at them and pulling them apart. I also wish I could say my older two were angels frolicking through the rows of bright yellow petals. Not so much. At one point I looked over and they were using them as swords and tossed a few like torpedos across the field. You know when you have those moments that you want to dig your head into the sand? That might have been one of those for me.
Aside from some typical boy mom chaos, we did have a nice time. We clipped a few to bring home with us, and I had a double motive for enjoying them. After they saw their day as a pretty centerpiece on my counter, we have been drying them out to save the seeds to plant them at our house next year. Here’s to hoping for some sunflower success.
