garden photography: sunflowers

July is about growing plants to eat.

(This month I’m looking at edible gardens – an allotment, herb gardens, a potager or even a single tomato plant. If you want to go bigger then why not a rice terrace in China, a field of corn in the prairies or lavender in Provence; you decide )

I think I first saw a field full of sunflowers when I was in Greece for the first time, aged 17 and three-quarters. A girl friend and I had set off to hitch-hike around Europe during the summer and I still recall seeing these flowers with their faces to the sun. I also recall the lorry driver giving us fistfuls of salted sunflower seeds to nibble on, cracking the hull with one’s teeth and spitting it out while keeping the kernel in the mouth and eating it. Not as easy as you think!

Closer to home I photographed these lovely flowers on my daughter’s allotment – I’m not convinced they were grown for their edible seeds for humans, or for oil production, but the bees and later the birds would enjoy them.

Sunflower seeds or kernels are commonly eaten as a snack food. Often used in bread making and baking, added to muesli and other cereals, mixed with peanut butter or even made in to sunflower butter as well as being sold as food for wild birds.

If you would like to join in with Garden Photography then please take a look at my Garden Photography Page. No complicated rules 🙂

• Create your own post and title it July: The Edible Garden
• Include a link to this page in your post so others can find it too
• Add the tag “GardenChallenge” so everyone can find the posts easily in the WP Reader
• Get your post in by the end of the month, as the new theme comes out on the first Sunday in August.
• Please visit the sites in the comments to see what others are posting.