Crop Planning

More resources

• https://www.gardenfortheenvironment.org/growing-gardeners-archive/2020/3/28/resource-planting-calendar A detailed planting guide for our area.

• Reseeding Annuals https://lifelab.org/2020/05/reseeding-annuals/

• An overview of the Three Sister (Corn, Beans and Squash) Garden https://www.nativeseeds.org/blogs/blog-news/how-to-grow-a-three-sisters-garden 

Edible Crop Planning Resources

On this page find many resources and information about Edible Crop Planning within a schoolyard calendar. 

https://lifelab.org/planning-annual-vegetable-crops/

• 15 minute training video that introduces the topics and key concepts of edible crop planning in school gardens.

• Samples of school-based edible crop planning schedules from other regions

• A generic crop planning chart of warm and cool season crops

• Links to crop planning tools

• and much more to "school" yourself on successful crop planning within a school year!

Additionally you can download a folder of resources to teach about edible crop planning that has edible crop planning theme seed packets and a crop planning worksheet to practice crop planning within a school year calendar. planning https://secureservercdn.net/192.169.223.13/17c.8b8.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Edible-Crop-Planning-Resources.zip 

Watch Crop Planning Video (15 Min)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GpXclvbM9fGLIIvNfgCYwYjyLRrM6sms/view?usp=sharing

What to Know About Sunflowers Consider growing both types of sunflowers

• Giant "Mammoth" single head edible seed - these are real tall (8 to 15 feet) and are impressive looking, the seeds can be dried and eaten. Birds and squirrels will also love them, you might have to harvest and store in a dry, rat proof space OR cover them in the field in the field if you want to save them to eat. These don't make good cut flowers and are usually grown to harvest seed or food for birds.

• Branching / Multi-stem - these are shorter and make great cut flowers. Like many summer flowers continual harvesting will result in more blooms. If flowers are left to go to seed bird and squirrels will most likely arrive to eat seeds. These seeds are less suitable, tasty for humans. There are some hybrid varieties that produce less pollen and are sold as "florist" varieties, these could be a good choice if you are planning to make weekly bouquets. Pollenless sunflowers are less messy whereas other sunflowers may drop a considerable amount of pollen from the cut flower arrangement.

It can be a good idea to let both types of sunflowers go to seed and then spread those seeds in the fall where you would like to see sunflowers in the spring. Fall sown seeds can often pop up early in the spring. Or just save some seed for next year's late spring / summer planting for Fall blooms.

Short video on sunflower varieties https://youtu.be/YZdya6H0QYk

Nice video on background information on growing sunflowers - https://youtu.be/0FgNWD0upTc