anonymous – Edmonton/Treaty 6
Sunflowers (summer 2024)
Last year, I grew sunflowers for the first time in my garden beds and there were some green beans (from a previous year’s seeds are meant to disperse seed pack) that had happily self-seeded in the same box. Throughout the year, I watched the beans climb up the sunflower stocks and both plants produced beautifully. So I thought I would try to recreate this relationship purposefully this year with the sunflower seeds that I received from this project. However, as the garden teaches us more every year, I learned that too many beans have the tendency to take over other crops and thus upset the careful relationship that had self-seeded the year before. As the beans got a bit of a head start compared to the sunflowers, they wrapped their strong tendrils around the sunflower stocks and pulled them sideways. No matter the amount of staking I tried, the beans were determined to make some funky sunflowers. Rather than cutting out the beans to save the sunflowers, I’ve let them go and now we are enjoying delicious beans every week, and although the sunflowers are a bit behind on blooming, their heads promise full flowers soon.