Helianthus annuus

Well, 2 of the 4 fat bottom sunflower girls have been harvested.  It truly is amazing that one sunflower seed can produce thousands of others.  I love toasted and salted sunflower seeds.  I remember growing sunflowers along our backyard fence as an early teen.  I let them dry on the stalk and then picked the seeds and toasted in a warm oven.  To make a long story short....I did it again, but this time I soaked them in a brine overnight before roasting.  I roasted them for about an hour in a 300F oven.  When they were done I tossed them in a very small amount of olive oil.  I divided them in two separate batches and mixed in salt and pepper in one batch and garlic in the other.

Sunflower heads consists of many individual flowers.  The left one has them removed.  Those our our onions in the back right.  I am curing them in the garage right now.

I cut most of the stalk off and strung them on some nylon twine.

Pickn' tha seeds!

24 hours in the brine.

Going into the oven.

I collected about 1/2 gallon of seeds.  Yum......