How to Grow Sunflowers for High Yields

Learn how to grow sunflowers with high seed yields that are also beautiful and impressive in the garden. Large, showpiece varieties can produce enormous seed yields while also providing pollen for bees and even food for wild birds. Sunflower leaves and stems are also useful on the homestead! We’ve included a tutorial on how to save Russian Mammoth sunflower seeds for re-planting in the garden next year.

Obtaining a yield from our homesteading efforts is the point of all the work, which is why I like to grow large-faced, giant sunflowers for seed, stalk, flower, and seed production.

I do enjoy smaller sunflowers that are mostly grown for their delight as cut flowers for weddings and special events. Like all sunflowers, these also attract pollinators, grow well in less than perfect soil, and create biomass (lots of leaves, stems, flowers) for the compost and livestock.

However, if I really want to get the bang for my buck, I grow seed sunflowers and the bigger, the better!

How to Grow Sunflowers with High Yields

There are many varieties of sunflowers you could learn how to grow but not all of them produce seeds. So, if seed production is your main priority, here are a few varieties to consider:

• Hopi Black Dye
• Snack Seed
• Super Snack Mix
• Kong Hybrid
• Sunzilla
• Mammoth Grey
• Giant White

And of course, Russian Mammoths!

More Helpful Gardening Resources

Planting Zones: Understanding Climate & Microclimates

Make a Bee House in a Bee Friendly Garden

Start a Butterfly Garden with Butterfly Bush

Russian Mammoth Sunflower Seeds

The Russian Mammoths are some of our favorite high yield seed sunflowers to grow. I first fell in love with these when I lived in Russia and saw these sunflower heads drooping over a super tall fence line. The sunflowers were over nine feet tall!

Their heads were so heavy with seed that they rested themselves over the tops of the fences to smile down at us as we walked by. I knew then that I wanted to learn how to grow sunflowers like those!

I finally did and we typically have complete strangers stop their cars in the road to stare at our Russian Mammoth sunflowers! And with so many seeds per head they’re worth the effort to grow.

How to Grow Sunflowers: Russian Mammoth Planting Instructions

The following is basic growing information for Russian Mammoth sunflowers (Helianthus annuus), or really any mammoth-type sunflower.

Sunflowers are an annual, meaning they complete their life cycle in a year. If you would like to collect their seed and save it for planting the next year, plan to do that in the late summer/early fall.

• Mammoths get to be 6’-10’ tall, though some of mine hit around 12′.

Cultural Requirements

• Sunflowers require full sun to bloom well, which they’ll do all summer and into the fall. This means a minimum of 6-8 hours of sunlight per day.
• Plant 1-2 weeks after your last frost date at a depth of 1″ in loose, well-draining soil.
• You should see the seed emerge in around 10-15 days. Final plant spacing should be 1-3 feet apart.

Sunflowers are actually drought tolerant but do be sure their soil stays evenly damp when they’re young. Mulch the soil as they age to help retain moisture and keep the soil temperature even.

• Bonus! Sunflowers attract pollinators like bees, which help grow even more sunflower seeds!

To learn more about gardening in your climate, click  below:

How to Grow Sunflowers with Allelopathy in Mind

Sunflowers are considered allelopathic plants, which means they can harm or stunt the growth of other plants. These plants produce biochemicals that  are basically in competition with other plants’ chemicals in the soil. 

Walnut trees are probably the most famous of these allelopathic plants and you might have observed that not many things will grow within the root zone of a walnut tree. 

These plants aren’t wholly bad, however. Here are some examples of good things allelopathic plants can do:

1. Marigold roots release alpha-terthienyl, a chemical that prevents root-knot nematode eggs from hatching.
2. Capsaicin (a pepper family chemical) can deter harmful, veggie-chomping caterpillars.
3. Brassicas like mustard and kale can suppress fungal pathogens in the soil.
4. Wheat, a popular cover crop in the veggie garden, suppresses the growth of grassy weeds in your soil.

The best teacher is experimentation and observation. Sometimes what you read online or in a book just doesn’t turn out to be true where you live.

Furthermore, some plants are far bigger bullies in the soil substrate than others. For example, a walnut tree can significantly damage the growth of something as large as an apple tree. They can even damage you (especially your skin), if you’re sensitive to the chemical they exude called juglone. 

And yet other plants like the awesome ground cover ajuga (bugleweed) and native shrubs like viburnum grow well around walnut trees. They’ve adapted to the chemical over time – in essence, they “got over it.” 

Is it Safe to Plant Sunflowers in My Garden?

Your native soil structure is going to be different from mine, so take my advice with a grain of salt. Combine plants in the garden, take notes, read garden literature, take more notes, do more experimentation.

• Typically, I plant sunflowers around the periphery of my multiple garden areas to attract pollinators and birds.
• The sunflowers help to control and suppress weeds wherever they’re planted, so this comes in quite handy around my fence lines.
• I also plant them along pathways to stand like sentinels because I love how they look.

One year I did end up with tomatoes right next to a row of sunflowers but didn’t observe any growth suppression because of it. Of course, they were indeterminate tomatoes which grow like leviathans with little regard to anyone or anything else around them.

Bottom line, don’t freak out about allelopathy – use it to your advantage! To read more about allelopathy in the garden and how to group plants together in guilds or as companions, please visit our article entitled:

–>>Plant a Vegetable Guild in 7 Steps<<–

How to Grow Sunflowers to Save Seeds

Russian Mammoths are heirlooms which means they grow true to type every year. That’s a fancy way of saying that the baby plants each new year look and act just like their parent plants from last year.

Sunflower seeds are tasty but exercise restraint and save some seeds back when you harvest to plant for the next year.

The added benefit of harvesting all the seeds, instead of letting them fall to the ground is that next year’s Russian Mammoths will be planting with deliberate spacing by you. If you let the seeds drop from the head, the sprouts will come up who knows where!

Plus, you will probably get smaller plants because they’ll sprout and be crowded in clumps where they fell.

Note: I don’t mind sharing some of my sunflower seed harvest with my native birds throughout the season because they do me the great service of eating out nasty bugs from my gardens when the come for a seed snack.

I also simply love to observe them in my garden and welcome them because they’re an important part of my garden’s ecosystem (which is a fancy term for “garden neighborhood”).

Print Recipe

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Save Russian Mammoth Sunflower Seeds

Grow Russian Mammoth Sunflowers to harvest bird seed from your backyard. Learn to save the seeds easily with this how-to.

Prep Time5 days d

Cook Time30 minutes mins

Total Time5 days d 30 minutes mins

Servings: 1 ,000 Seeds

Equipment

• Small limb saw for stalk
• Sturdy garden clippers for head
• Seed Screen to winnow chaff, optional

Ingredients

• Window screen for drying as on a screen door
• Bags or envelopes for seed storage

Instructions

• Wait to harvest the whole head of the sunflower until all the petals have dropped off and the seeds have turned from green to black.
• Once the petals have fallen you can cover the sunflower heads in a paper bag if you don't want to share any sunflower seeds with the birds. Birds WILL eat your seeds if the heads aren't covered. Still wait to harvest the heads until the seeds have turned dark.
• Cut the flower from the stalk with the limb saw.
• Once the seeds have turned black (black and white stripes), cut the head from the stalk. Compost the stalk or use in wattle fencing.
• Lay the heads on a large screen or any flat surface that will allow good air flow. If you have an extra screen door on hand, they work well. If all you have is screen, staple it over two sawhorses.
• Flip the heads over every 3-5 days as the seeds cure (dry) to prevent mold from developing on the sunflower seeds. If you are concerned that the heads are too moist, place a fan gently blowing near them to better circulate the air.
• Once the heads and seeds are completely dry, they should pop out pretty easily. Wear some gloves to save your skin and begin working the seeds out of the heads by massaging the head gently. Do this over a sheet so you don't lose any seed.
• Store your seeds in an envelope or jar. Eat within a year or give to the birds for fresh flavor. Compost the leftover dried plant matter.
• Be sure to save some of the best seed for planting next year.

Notes

To test that your seeds are fully dry, place into a glass jar with a lid and watch for condensation on the sides of the jar over the next few days.

The Benefits of Russian Mammoths

Like I said, I’ll never forget the first time I saw a Russian mammoth sunflower, its huge head dangling over the side of a fence looking for all the world like a peeping Tom. A Russian mammoth sunflower is visually stunning for its size alone. 

Besides gorgeous flowers and bounteous seeds, learning how to grow sunflowers can provide you with other benefits to the homestead. 

Benefits of Sunflowers in the Garden

1. The color and symmetry of sunflowers, as well as their pollen and nectar stores, attract beneficial insects of all kinds.
2. They also have large, umbrella-like leaves that shade the ground beneath them, keeping it cooler and helping it retain moisture.
3. Sunflower roots go deep into the soil, alleviating compaction and mining nutrients from deeper in the substrate than most annual flowers can achieve in their limited growing time. 
4. Sunflowers put off a lot of biomass, which is a fancy way of saying they produce lots of flowers, leaves, and stems. All this material makes a great addition to the compost pile.

Benefits of Sunflowers in the Kitchen

1. The leaves of sunflowers are edible as a salad green when very young (and not as hairy as when they mature).
2. You can east sunflower buds much in the same way you would an artichoke heart!
3. Once they grow larger, you can use the leaves to wrap meats and vegetables in open flame cooking. We have a recipe for cookies baked on an outdoor grill and will often use sunflower leaves to wrap the cookies before baking.
4. Use seeds to grow delicious sunflower sprouts or microgreens.
5. The leaves can be used along with horseradish and grape leaves to help lacto-fermented pickles remain crisp and turgid.
6. Since the petals are edible, you can use them to make sunflower jelly or even homemade gelatin dessert.

Other Benefits of Sunflowers 

1. Sunflowers have wellness properties that have been employed by native people up and down North and South America as this article from the Herbal Academy called the Lesser Known Uses of Sunflowers will explain.
2. The entire plant is edible and can serve as part of your livestock ration. Sometimes called “summer hay”, big leafy plants and branches from trees are a great feed supplement as the growing season winds down.
3. Stem pulp can be added to firm up homemade paper.
4. The stalks of mammoth type sunflowers are an average 3-4″ in diameter,  we have to saw them down at the end of the season! The stalks make great kindling, because they burn fast and hot when dried. Quite often they grow up straight and tall and cut down into orderly shapes for your kindling pile.

Growing Your Own Sunflower Seeds

If you’re interested in either eating sunflower seeds or feeding them to animals, Russian Mammoths are useful indeed. They can produce over one thousand seeds per head! A few ideas for using up your sunflower seeds include:

• Great supplement for your backyard chicken flock.
• Similarity, a nutritious boost for the wild birds that visit your backyard feeder.
• A tasty snack for you and the kids.
• Healthy addition to your homemade granola.
• You can also learn to press nut and seed oil at home, including sunflower seed.

These Russian Mammoth sunflowers do take up space in the garden, I’m not going to lie. However, it will be space well used!

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