Sunflowers: When to harvest & post harvest practices to extend blooms 1-1.5 weeks out
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- čas přidán 28. 08. 2024
- My main venue for selling is through a farmer's market that occurs every other Sunday. It can be tricky to time blooms every other week and since sunflowers are the "backbone" of my market, I was highly motivated to figure out:
1) When to harvest and at what bud stage to buy myself the most amount of time for a market that is over 1.5 weeks out
2) What temperature to set my fridge at to prevent "fridge burn" but also slow down opening
3) What stage should I expect my sunflowers to be at during market day based on when I harvest/stage?
This was a great video for this first time sunflower farmer! I had researched when to harvest, but to actually see the different stages was really helpful. Especially since I have been panicking about timing markets with the sunflowers opening in the garden faster than I would like. Thank You Jessie, you do a great job with your videos!
Glad it was helpful! Good luck!
Such great information!! Thank you for making this video. I'm always paranoid that I'm harvesting to early when cutting them closed. I try to mix the open and closed ones in the bouquets because customer education is a must.
Perfect video! I’m so happy to have come across your CZcams channel today😃 thank you so much for sharing all this information about the sunflowers I didn’t know before. Great job👍🌻🌻🌻
Yay! So glad it was helpful!
Really helpful video. I didn’t think about harvesting at noon, and I might try it. I might also try growing some of the Procut Horizon next year as they are bred to be upright facing and I think that would be a helpful addition to bouquets-especially ones that are wrapped in paper on a market stand as I find that my sunflowers can be obscured once I wrap my bouquets.
That’s a smart idea! I have the same exact problem. At first I poo poo’d people lamenting about a sideways facing sunflower and then I wrapped a few side facing ones in a bouquet and ate my words 🤣
Did not know about harvesting the sunflowers at noonish for upright blooms. Thanks.
Bloom time will be affected by depth of planting, so one could purposely plant some shallower and others deeper to stagger the growth/bloom time. I start mine indoors due to bird pressure and then plant individually outdoors and do the uneven depth naturally as I am not very careful about how deep I plant the seedlings.. This year I planted about 70 every 10 days and as of this week am getting 5-10 cuts per day.
Also, I hold my (sun)flower bucket inside a garbage can so that the top of the garbage can supports the long stems nicely. I keep this in a dark and cool location.
Very good tips as usual! I did not realize that about depth of planting. I will actually try to stagger bc I literally have 2 successions coming up at the same time ready for the same market 🤦🏻♀️
@@bareflowerfarm I've started picking my sunflowers at different times of day so that they are not all facing up or sideways, but both. I like the sense of energy that creates. Movement without movement.
Good tip on harvesting when the head is upright! Do you have a video showing your fridge setup/how you store? Keeping track of what might have gotten a bit too old/far gone while storing?
No video yet but I will do one in the future! So far I’ve only done sunflowers, statice, stock and snapdragons in the fridge. All last for a good week ☺️
My extra fridge still also stores veggies for my market so I can’t keep flowers there. I have the buckets all lined around my AC vents in the kitchen lol. I usually harvest the day before the market or a da and a half.I also use a few drops of bleach and some flower food with my flower water instead of the tablets since I only make about 8-10 bouquets per market
Lol to the ac vents!! Creative solution!
Love your videos! 🌸
Gardener’s Workshop has CVBN tablets.
So I remember doing the math. Gardener’s Workshop sells 160 tablets for $29 with a $10 shipping. I got 800 tablets for $45 + $6 shipping. That’s the main reason why I didn’t buy from Lisa.
@@bareflowerfarm Oh. It sounded like you had a hard time finding them. My bad.
Haha I should have elaborated! I had a hard time finding them at a reasonable price! Once I saw the price for 800 tablets, it skewed my perception of 80 tablets 😆
This is really helpful I harvested some that were tight like the ones you showed lol hopefully they open before I go out of town 🫣
This is my first year selling and I didn’t expect as many sales as I’ve been getting. I just received an order for a retirement party next Friday and she wants mostly sunflowers. i feel confident to store in fridge from this video so thank you!!! BUT i don’t think i will be able to get tablets in time. Do you think if i change water everyday the stems will be ok? Thank you for your time!
Yes!! And they say putting in a drop of bleach works too 😁. You can try a small bucket with bleach to test it out a few stems!
@@bareflowerfarm yes that’s what i was thinking i could test out! Thank you so much!
@@bareflowerfarm my sunflowers did amazing and opened up perfectly, were super healthy and she bought 20more than she intended! Thank you for the tips! Watching all your videos haha
Wow
Johnny Seeds Sells the CVBN tablets
Once you have at if they are one and done do you u just pull the rest of the plant out in order to have that space for another seed or plant? I can’t seem to find any videos going over what to do after with the plant once they are harvested…
Yup, you just pull the plant out with roots if it's one and done. If possible, I actually like to leave the roots in since there's still good microbial activity going on there but it doesn't make for the most pretty row!
Thank u for all of the info! I'm really considering getting a earthway seeder for my mass plantings of sunflowers. The demand for them is really high😁
Do u feel like they are easy to operate/worth the investment??
Yes absolutely! I got my earthway for around $135. Assuming you factor labor at $15 an hr, it just needs to save you 9 hrs to pay itself back 😁. Plus no squatting or bending to direct sow!
What holding solution do you use? I like your videos very informative thank you 🌞
I use floral life’s ultra 300 because I only need to cut stem once. But honestly, the cheaper ones work well too!
I can't seem to find cvbn tablets. Could you send me a link?
Here's a link from Johnny's site: www.johnnyseeds.com/tools-supplies/cut-flower-supplies/flower-post-harvest/chrysal-cvbn-treatment-80-count-6884.html
What is this tablet you refer to?
It’s a CVBN tablet!
Enjoying your videos.
So are you giving your 🌻 two pills & a floral packet?
Thank You!
Just 1 Cvbn pill and no floral packet! Studies have shown that floral food doesn’t really prolong the life of Procuts but because there’s sugar, it may encourage the sunflower to open earlier. My goal is to delay their opening. I give floral food to customers upon purchase though!