a sunflower

One of the things Drake was most excited to plant in his garden this year was a sunflower.

We started three separate sunflower plants indoors when it was still too cold outside. Once it warmed up enough, we moved them out to their permanent home.

Only two of the plants survived. The third one was accidentally stepped on.

We were so excited to see such a big, huge flower growing from just one sunflower seed. The size of the one below is about as big as one of them got, and it had several other small heads coming off of it as well.

But the other one just kept growing...

...and growing...

...and growing. I took a picture of Shad next to it to show it's size when I was sure it was as big as it would get.

But it only continued to grow until it's head was so big and heavy, it couldn't sit up straight anymore. You might also notice that we were very successful with our weed gardens (pictured in lower right-hand corner).

The head on this sunflower got pretty big. We didn't know what to do with it, so we just let it hang out like that for a while.

When I asked Drake to stand next to it to show how big it was and how much it had slumped over, this is what he did.

So I took a picture, and told him to stand up straight. So he straightened up... a little.

If you looked closely, you could see the seeds underneath the little green/yellow blossoms.

After a while, Shad decided to chop off the top so we could harvest the seeds. It was curling back a little, but it was approximately 15-16 inches wide.

We got a lot of seeds from it.

And the kids had a lot of fun eating the seeds.

Now I just need to figure out a way to give them some more flavor.