When I was no more than 5 years old, I remember the first time I came to know sunflowers. We lived in an "Archie Bunker" type house in Queens and one Spring day I was sitting on the stoop in front of my house. My mom had cut off the large flower head of a giant sunflower filled with sunflower seeds. I sat there picking the seeds from the flower, breaking them open and eating the insides, loving it.

When I moved into this house last summer, I was unpacking some things and found a bag of mammoth sunflower seeds to plant. It was past the months for appropriate planting, but I stuck some in the ground without much planning or thought or preparations and forgot about them. That was July.

Here it is Spring and some sunflowers from last years planting appeared I noticed and are two feet tall with buds on them! I'm planting more seeds today....

And little by little, I'm working on getting some landscaping and gardening going and hope to have pictures soon....