Sunflowers and Pole Beans

[littleminnie]

I find sunflowers definitely are thick enough to support anything but their roots are shallow and so they can get pushed over in wind easily. I have wind problems where I garden and my sunflowers got pushed down when nothing else had problems early this year. Later the last sowing of corn did too- it was a stormy year. I assume if you have clay soil and less wind your sunflowers would stay standing. If they do stand, the big ones are very strong. I always let my sunflowers volunteer where they want. I sell bouquets and mix with sunchoke flowers for scent and they sell well. I also like to use them for shade for lettuce or whatever.

[wildseed57]

The ones that My sister let come up every year, you would need a car to push over normally as they have a deed tap root, The birds go crazy when the seeds are developed especially the finches.
Last summer we got some heavy rains and some straight line winds and some of the sun flowers that were fully grown and in bloom got pushed over along the fence line making it hard to mow, but come fall I was able to saw them off at the base and snap them off.
My sister place sets lower than the serounding area and every time it rains her back yard gets flooded which is good during the summer when the garden is going, but terrible in the spring and late fall. That is one reason we buit a enclosed garden with raised beds. The sun flower stocks when dried right can last a season or two and usually I try using them in the garden when ever I need stakes that I can let beans or tomatoes grow up on. I do have to watch that no wasp has desided to make a nest inside them, which I found out the hard way last summer.They are nice when planted in mass because they are so big and when in bloom are covered in hundreds of small sun flowers.
George W.

[Leenstar]

I had alot of success with my planting. My three sisters were two-inch strawberry popcorn, hidatsa shield figure beans (pole/vining type), and Pennsylvania crookneck squash. I planted the rows of corn at the maximum spread between rows. I planted all the stuff around the same time and just let it go.

The plot was a community garden plot and I used a 2 x 3 yard rectangle.

Things I learned
1. I wished I would have put the beans closes to corn. I used standard row arrangement but the beans grew up, fell over and eventually made it up the corn. I think if they were closer they would have done better. They did fine
2. Planted more squash. I just put a couple of seeds all around in the plot at random spots.
3. Japanese beetles were a menance in this plot partly due to my neighbor's "helpful" pheromone trap on the corner closest to my plot. Japanese beetles seem to like soybeans which were also next door. The japanese beetles went for both the corn and the beans. At least it meant they were easy to gather up.

I tried it again this year and had Sunflowers immediately next to to the first row of squash. The sunflowers were east of the three sisters plot. The sunflowers way out-paced the three sisters resulting in more shading than I would have liked.

Sunflowers might be effective if they were started later than the squash and beans.

[12540dumont]

Last year I tried just Lima Beans (Christmas) and Sunflowers (my own farm mix). The sunflowers did great. Not a single Lima. However, it was chillier than normal and, I planted them at the same time. And I suspect the evil gopher was at work.

I have found in my 3 sisters garden, I used Oaxacan Green Corn, A pole green bean that was only for seed increase and Winter Luxury squash. I planted the corn at 18", I put squash only on the South and West side of the plot in the outside row. I put GB on every other corn. I harvested 2 quart jars of Green Bean Seeds (Blue Lake/white seeded). 10 lbs of dried corn and about 20 pumpkins.

This year I'm trying the sunflower seed thing again. I planted the squash, and then in a separate row between the squash I planted beans and sunflower seeds. I'll post a photo.

[robertb]

JA's tend to cast a pretty dense shade, so you'd have to space them out. They're quite floppy as well, so they might well need staking.

[12540dumont]

So, this is very early in the season, I'll post another as they grow.
Squash in one row
Beans in another (Petaluma Gold Rush)
Sunflowers in another.

My plan is to remove the bottom 3 leaves of the sunflowers and see if I can't get the beans to twine up them. Maybe I'll throw in some stakes to try and get the beans to go in that direction. There's plenty of open space for the squash to run. These are all Maxima's, I figure by August, I'll have to circumnavigate the farm to get to the other bed.

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[12540dumont]

Same Sunflowers/beans/squash yesterday.

I put in a few poles, so that I didn't trample the beans when weeding.

I hope to transfer them to the sunflowers.

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