Hi, Last year, my sunflowers did very poorly. It was my first year in the
garden, and last year's rainy, wet and cold spring made the whole garden
suffer!

anyways, my mother in law wants me to plant some sunflowers in the front
flower bed at her house (railroad tie, under some bay windows), but i'm not
sure how to kick start these guys, and grow some big flowers!

She seems to have some good seed (some "giant" varies that she collected). I
know that sunflowers are very heavy feeders, but am not sure about how to get
them cranking! The soil in the beds isn't terrible, but not great either. It
doesn't drain terribly well, so I thought maybe adding a sack (a BIG sack!) of
vermiculite, and maybe a sack of peat, and digging it in would help that
problem.

I also have a couple 5 gallon pails of some fertilizer from mel bartholomew's
"square foot gardening"--just wood ash, blood meal, and bone meal, that seems
to work well when added to the planting holes of my other plants. I have a
source of some (about 18 month old) horse manure/bedding.

I was thinking of digging the holes extra large for the seeds, spiking them
with rotted manure and a handful of the fertilizer, then planting the seed.
Then maybe some 20-20-20 every couple weeks?

Thanks, and please help me with the mother in law! (ie, get my ass out of the
doghouse!)

John

The giant Russian sunflowers need lots of room. Good loose soil is important
but each plant needs about an 18" X 18" space. The multiflora types can be a
lot more crowded and are more attractive as flowers. both types require full
sun, but are otherwise almost trouble free.