Not sure if this is "Goats" or Gardening"

[BlueHeronFarm]

So I'm trying to learn to garden.

I thought sunflowers would be nice to grow. Pretty easy, as far as I could tell - plus the goats can eat the whole plant...seeds, flowers, stems... How fun.

I bought a packet of seeds for - oh i dunno - $1.80. "Mammoth Sunflower" -I feed BOSS, not these, but these looked fun. 6-12' stalks.

So I went to the compost pile to get "soil enhancement." Next to the actual compost we have the poo pile - just poo and wood shavings - we add it to the compost as "green" becomes available.

Lo and behold, from out of the poo pile is growing a 5 foot stalk with a bud that I'm pretty darned sure is going to be whatever sunflower gives us BOSS. There are also 4 smaller ones starting.

I am such a sucker -- $1.80 for seeds, indeed!

[Jim S.]

Yep, the black oil sunflower plant grows to about 3 feet high...just right for the combine head. They spray them with paraquat to kill the plants, like they do with cotton, then after the field is dead they come along and combine them pretty as you please.

Have some fun and scatter some around from the seed bag. They are a neat little compact plant, and the heads can get quite large. The birds will love ya!

[ChickenMom]

I think we have a sunflower growing in every poo pile in the pasture! LOL Cows just don't chew as well as they should.

[southerngurl]

They spray them with paraquat to kill the plants, like they do with cotton, then after the field is dead they come along and combine them pretty as you please.

Ugh, sounds like I need to start growing my own!

[Bearfootfarm]

You can buy 50 lbs of BOSS (sold as bird seed) for less than $2 per lb, and they grow just as well as high priced "seed" packets. I often buy mixed bird seed and plant strips around the crop fields so the birds and other critters have lots of food.