Sunflower seed packets

October 25th - Today we decorated little 'key bags' I purchased for pennies apiece from McGuckins to store our Sunflower Seeds for next year. We took several Mammoth Russian Sunflower heads that were drying in Michele's aerated garage for several weeks and had kids remove the seeds into a big bin. After decorating the bags and writing planting information on the back, the kids scooped up a handful of seeds and filled their bags.

To harvest seeds, the flowers or fruit often need to stay on the plant for a longer time than if you were to harvest them for eating. The seeds should be stored in a cool, dry place until they are ready to plant in the spring. Here is a good site with a video that gives a lot of great information about saving seeds. http://cookingupastory.com/harvesting-and-saving-seeds-from-the-garden-part-2

Mesmerized by the giant sunflowers and their spiral seed patterns, I decided to turn it into a Garden-Math class for Emika's 4th grade class.

Briefly, the number of spirals in a sunflower is almost always a Fibonacci

series number (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 56,90.....), ie. the sum of the previous two numbers equals the next number in the series. These spirals are also seen in pinecones, coneflowers and other natural forms.

Curiously, the angle at which seeds start forming in the sunflower head, 137.5 degrees, is related to the Fibonacci series and is called 'the golden angle'. If

this angle diverges by even a few degrees, less efficient packing of seeds is seen (in the figure below from left to right, the angle of seed appearance is 137.3, 137.5 and 137.6).

For the remaining 30 minutes of the class, Mr. Newby was able to stream a fascinating TED lecture I had recommended for the students about a sustainable fish farm in Spain. http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_barber_how_i_fell_in_love_with_a_fish.html

Mr. Newby eloquently tied in the idea of a sustainable fish farm with gardening organically and sustainably, which is one of the ideas we are trying to promote with the Heatherwood Garden.