More 2003 Garden Picutres

2003 Garden Results

To say that the year 2003 was a disaster would be an understatement.  This has been the worst year that I've had since I started gardening.  My largest sunflower reach approximately 12 feet (right).  Many of my sunflowers didn't even exceed double digit heights.  Most hovered around the 9-10 foot range.  There were several factors that lead to this poor showing.  We had a below average cold spell through May, and above average amount of rain through June.  It seemed like weeks would go by with little direct sunlight.  The ground saturated with water, which promoted shallow root growth and  which stunted the height of most of the plants.  It seemed there was also an unusually large amount of insects this year which took their toll on the plants. Many of my other crops did poorly as well, such as marrows & squash.   The pictures here are some of the highlights to the year.  I've learned some valuable lessons this year, as I do every year, and I will use what I learned to improve next year's crop.

12+ foot Diane's Strain plant. (right)  This variety is known for it's large seed heads.  This one with a a head diameter of about 18 inches.  More info on Diane's Strain

(left) 8 foot Paul Bunyan Hybrid Sunflower.  The head was approximately 18 inches in diameter.  (above) The squirrels beat me to the seeds on this one! More info on Paul Bunyan Hybrid

(left) 9 foot Titan Sunflower.  Although this sunflower only grew to 9 feet, it's lower leaves were 20+ in both length and width (above).  Titan is a single headed variety, but this particular plant was multi-flowered. More info on Titan

(left) Picture of 11 foot tall x 6 feet wide, self-sown Hemker X unknown Giant Single headed variety.  These plants had much larger leaves and flowers than pure strain Hemker plants, but still retained it's heavy branching habit all the way to the base. (above) More info on Hemker sunflowers

More 2003 Garden Picutres