Black Oil Sunflowers...

John holding one of the spent sunflower
heads.

I really wish it would rain.  I know what you are thinking after that statement... DUH!?!  Indiana dirt is all cracked, powdery and dried up.  My water bill last month for watering the gardens was almost $100.00.  I decided that it was time to back off since the corn doesn't look very good at all.  I'm 5' 3" tall and the corn isn't as tall as I am yet and a lot of it has tassled.  Now that sucks.  Thank goodness my brother has plenty of seed and is willing to share for next year.  Non-GMO Bantam Sweet Corn seed is impossible to find.

Squash bugs have invaded the acorn squash but then again, I'm not surprised.  I've lost all of the plants but three and another one isn't looking all that fantastic.  The yellow squash is pretty much spent, I think there might be two plants left out of five that haven't died yet.  

The cherry tomatoes are insane.  There must be a good 250 tomatoes on that one plant all the time!  I've been enjoying them on occasion with some of the fresh basil in scrambled eggs.  Speaking of eggs, my brother got his first 10 yesterday.  The chickens have been laying now for a couple of weeks and with just me here, the eggs are abundant... and very good to say the least.

Seeds from the first sunflower.

Speaking of the chickens, I added expanding their run on my to do list for next month.  It's been so freakin' hot outside the past couple of weeks that I've only stepped foot out the door when I have to.  It will have to be a temporary run because I plan on taking if with us once we sell the house to move out to paradise.  (I say paradise now but I'm sure the bitching will really ensue once that endeavor is completed!)

Sunflowers in the chicken garden.

The black oil sunflowers are doing well under the circumstances of no rain.  Surprisingly well.  There were a couple of heads that were ready yesterday so John and I grabbed them and he "de-seeded" them.  There's more than enough seed out of those first two heads to have quite a bit to plant next year.  Since they are damp, I'll have to wait for them to dry out before I can store them but I'm actually pleased with the way these turned out.  Not bad for a hand full of seed from Mom that she got for bird seed.

The germination rate for the bird seed sunflowers was about 1/4.  I would have to say that for an experiment, it went better than I expected.  I like black oil sunflowers.  They aren't as tall as the mammoths but they bloom much earlier and add a bit of whimsy to the chicken garden.  Yes, the chickens will get their treat of sunflower seeds.  As the rest of the heads are ready, I'll probably cut them off and hang them up for a little chicken pinata fun for my alien flock of chickens.

We will see how the beans, heirloom tomatoes and everything else turns out.  I'm cutting bottles today for water funnels to direct all of the water that I will put on the plants directly to the roots.  Learned that trick from my mother this year but hadn't done it yet even though I KNOW I should have.  I'll walk you through how to do that... next time.

Happy Wednesday my friends!

*hugs*

~Lanie