Winter Crops and Sunflowers

By Tina Saravia

When I started planting my winter vegetables this fall, I was looking forward to some radishes carrots, snow peas, spinach - the cool weather vegetables.

As the seeds started sprouting and slowly growing through the cooler weather and shorter days, I started noticing an unexpected crop.

I had previously planted some black oil seed sunflower (Helianthus annulus) in the same bed. Apparently, I missed some seeds when I harvested the sunflowers. So, alongside my vegetable crop, these sunflowers started growing. One of them has even bloomed. I was not aware that they grow this late in the year, much less bloom in late fall amidst the frosty weather and all the rains.