Sunflower Harvesting

We're forecast to get our first frost tonight, actually it's looking to be our first freeze as well. This morning we were out doing a bit of harvesting, and this evening we will be doing a whole lot more. Its is rare for us to not have a frost until early October, but I haven't been complaining! It's been a novelty to have the tomatoes ripening on the plants, instead of on our counters, and I'm sure our dry bean harvest will be the best yet.

The start of our harvest was the sunflowers. This was the second wheelbarrow-full we cut off and brought up to the house, to fully dry on the sunporch before being stored for later separating of seed from seed-head. Some of these will be dried and given to the chickens throughout the fall and winter as tasty treats, and some will get planted back out in the spring.

We've had one section of the bottom field planted in sunflowers since we moved in, and are currently working on getting more and more growing down there, in the hopes that at some point we can have that contribute substantially to the chicken's feed. We'll see whether we actually have enough space (or few enough laying hens!) for that to be realistic. But every little bit helps, and plus, the field of sunflowers is just the most beautiful thing to see!