How to win Sunflower Growing Contests
As our lovely allotment space takes shape here at bed quarters, our resident gardener, Paul, has been sharing his tips with us on how to grow the tallest sunflowers in all of the land, so we thought it was only fair that we shared this wisdom with you too.
What you’ll need:
- Sunflower seeds
- Seed trays
- An old plant pot or you could make your own eco-friendly pot using newspaper (click here to find out how)
- Canes
- Garden twine
- To start off, Paul recommends planting seedlings into seed trays and then transfer into pots after the last frost (so hopefully anytime now!)
- Sunflowers can, and will, get very tall and top-heavy, so at some point, they will need staking to keep them upright with a cane and some garden twine
- The sunflowers will need a good amount of sun approx. 6-8 hours a day, so place them in the sunniest spot you can find, but ensure they are sheltered from the wind (we don’t want them to break!)
- The sunflowers must be kept well-watered as they do drink a lot. Paul also recommends feeding them at least once a week with a good tomato feed to help them become big and strong.
- A few little tricks to (hopefully) keep the slugs and snails away… you can use ash from a fire pit or fireplace spread over the rim of the pot and lightly on the soil, and you can also try using copper coins or beer traps (Paul’s favourite) too.
And that’s it – simple!
