Well it looks like I will have a ton of compost material. I am thinking of making a 4 foot compost the length on my garden a 100 foot long! my sunflowers are 6 to 12 eet tall with 10 flowers on each oe. I have a least a 100 plants and a 1000 plus flowers! The huge leaves alone will make a compost! I am starting with the leaves then layering the stems cut in 2 foot lenths.
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I will start the compost in about two weeks since many of the sunflowers are following over from rain and wind!! Sunflowers also bring alot of bird manure since 100's of canaries are on the flowers all the time. Even the shells from the seeds that are all over the ground from the birds are ike a mulch to the garden! When the seeds are out of the huge flowers the flower remains can be torn into pieces and added to the compost!
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So we have bird manure, seed shells huge stems and at least 30 leaves per plant! Even the stems that hold up the leaves are great compost material! There is still another product the flower itself sheds lots of orange flowers that cover the seeds! I would say it pays to border the north side of a gaden with sunflowers for future compost and bird manure!
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I am going to leave in the a single 20 foot row of the main stems minus the flowers with a side leaf stems for support of the pea and bean vines for a fall crop! I also have some new sunflowers coming up for fall flowers! Doesn't this post make sense? My girlfriend says I am nuts ad all I have on my mind is the garden!
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