Collecting and drying sunflower seeds.

[Susan BBPM]

I have literally scores of sunflowers in my garden and want to save them - for seed next year, for the birds and maybe some to eat.
Some of them were sewn in April and have already flowered, and some are still in bud. I've googled to find out when to cut them for harvesting but I'm still not clear. I cut a couple of big mammoths today. All the fluffy yellow bits had fallen off leaving just the seeds. The back of the sunflower head is green still - some sources say wait until it's brown. The seeds don't come out super-easy, but I did manage to scrape them all out with my fingers.

Any tips? I don't want to do it too early, but don't want to be late and find something else has beaten me to it.

Also, is it normal for them to be full of earwigs?

 

[Oliver Buckle]

Earwigs do love to climb, the traditional way of getting rid of them is a matchbox full of cotton wool on top of a bamboo cane, just take it off and chuck it in the fire when you have one. Does anybody still use matches?
You can leave some for the birds, they will eat them in situ. We leave all our flower stalks in the garden if we are not dead heading for repeat flowering, I have seen small flocks of long tail tits and goldfinches feeding on them in winter, and they give a bit of protection from frost. Apparently long tail tits 'tell' other birds where there are food sources.

 

[Susan BBPM]

Good idea to leave some - that would add interest to the garden in winter as well.

And yes - I still use matches - for lighting my lovely (newly installed last winter) log burner!

 

[cntrlwagdnr]

You can look it up on the web. It tried it onc for human consumption, but it involved boiling them and roasting them. A lengthy and finicky process. Pitched them in the end.

 

[Susan BBPM]

You can look it up on the web. It tried it onc for human consumption, but it involved boiling them and roasting them. A lengthy and finicky process. Pitched them in the end.

Since making this post I've discovered that sunflower is the most popular sprouting seed - highly nutritious. So we could use them to sprout over the winter.

3 Ways to Sprout Sunflower Seeds - wikiHow

Like many seeds, sunflower seeds can be made to sprout in order to produce a healthy source of nutrients. Proper sprouting depends on a variety of factors: temperature, water volume and time. The process is easy and can be used to grow...

www.wikihow.com