Kat - Here's what works for me. I plant ten rows of sunflowers in a block, with earlier varieties, like ProCuts, medium varieties (I use Sunrich) and later varieties (I use Sunbright and Sunny). I space the plants 8 inches apart and the rows one foot apart. Every six rows, I leave a 3 foot path. Two weeks later, I plant another block just like it in a new area. I do this twice more, for a total of four plantings, and this has given me flowers into October.

I don't think you can get away from the fact that sunflowers are big plants and do take up a lot of space. I think you would have poor results if you tried to do multiple plantings in the same bed.

ThinMan

So, ThinMan, you are planting in four separate areas, correct? You don't go back and say, plant your fourth planting in the first area, after the first area has been cut, do you?

Like Kat, I have limited space and I'm still trying to figure out how to maximize my growing in the area I have.

Thanks - and thanks for asking the question, Kat!
:)
Dee

So, ThinMan, you are planting in four separate areas, correct?

Correct. So I am putting in my fourth planting 6 weeks after my first planting, and even the ProCuts in the first planting are still a couple of weeks away from being ready to pick. The later varieties in the first planting have more like four or five more weeks to go. There's really no way you could replant in the first area doing it the way I mentioned.

I direct-seed all of mine, but if you were to start early varieties in cell packs and then transplant them to the field, you could end up with a shorter cycle time from setting out to harvesting. I can't speak from any experience about this, but I know that some growers do start their sunflowers ahead of time.

ThinMan

Thanks ThinMan and Dee for your responses. I guess, ThinMan, that I cant get away from having to hold space open for the successions. This is my problem. I can dedicate the space for the initial planting but I am growing on about 2/3 of an acre and so each desirable crop is initially given its due space and leaving space empty is a very difficult proposition. I suppose that one just has to decide what is the more profitable and thin down the list. Yikes!!!
Talking of starting sunflowers early, my experience with this is that the transplants sit there for a long time trying to figure out what the heck just happened to them and the direct seeded boys and girls catch up and even sometimes surpass the transplants. Ergo, dont take up the greenhouse space, IMHO. ThinMan, when your initial and secondary plantings have been harvested, what do you replace them with? Do you plant suns again, or is there another later bloomer that you can recommend? Thanks again for your help.
Kat

ThinMan, when your initial and secondary plantings have been harvested, what do you replace them with?

Kat, I don't replace them with anything. We have a short growing season here in northern lower Michigan. I haven't got into hoophouses yet, so my suns get planted at the end of May to miss the last spring frost. Eighty days later, when the last of the first planting is harvested, we are well into August. At that point, I have maybe a month and a half of growing season left.

Also, I have quite a bit of room here, so I have the luxury of not worrying much about space.

You're very welcome. I'm just tickled that as a relative greenhorn, I have some little kernel of knowledge that might be useful to somebody.

ThinMan

Thanks, ThinMan - although I'm not so happy with your answer, lol! I too am looking to maximize my space, but I guess it won't always happen. I wish the weather had been more cooperative this fall so I could have extended my beds as planned. I will have to be very disciplined this spring and find time and work hard, but hopefully that extra planting space will help, once I get it in.

:)
Dee

Thanks ThinMan, I guess if I just looked at your zone, I wouldnt have needed to ask the question. BTW I noticed your response to the post on the Market Garden regarding making a living on a small farm and I was wondering if you subscribe to the gardening / farming practices of the Whole Systems Agriculture Method and if so, does is work for you? Sorry to get a bit off topic here, but actually it may be very pertinent to the space question. Dee, the maximizing space question is my biggest concern right now, being Winter and all :) and the desire to get out there and start is almost unbearable, I have considered squashing more beds upto and over the fence and off into the woods. And I would do it too, just ask the DH! The fall here has been very cooperative and allowed me to do all my transplanting so I am pretty much ready for the spring rush. Cant wait! Kat

...I was wondering if you subscribe to the gardening / farming practices of the Whole Systems Agriculture Method ...

Nope, not yet at least. It does sound interesting, though, and I'm going to be digging into it a bit more. :-)

TM

Kitkat,

What if you were to double plant by using another type of plant? I guess I am thinking what if you were to plant a hardy annual when the crop 1 and 2 sunflowers were finished? Larkspur comes to mind but there are others. With the fall sowing, the larkspur should bloom early the following Spring, and after harvesting the larkspure, that area can then be used for crops 3 & 4 of sunflowers the following year. I have found that my Autumn sown larkspurs bloom much earlier than Spring sown giving you a second crop in that area.

Unfortunately, that doesn't help your crop for 2009 though.

Good questions. I hope there is a solution for you.

Teresa

Hi Teresa, thanks for the input, I think your idea is great. Larkspurs do really well for me and I had not thought of using them as a succession plant to the suns as I usually wait until later in the fall the pull the old plants. So if I would motivate myself a little sooner, I think this method is definately worth a try. I'll give it a try next season and report back. I suppose Agrostemma would be useful here too, any other suggestions?

ThinMan, I would be really interested in any progress you make with the Whole Systems program should you decide to try it, if you wouldnt mind reporting back. TIA, Kat

Three thoughts:

If you had zinnia starts to plant in August, you might get production out of them before frost.

If you have any perennials/biennials that need to get a good start, you could plant them (again these would be seedlings) in August. Sweet william, angelica, foxgloves, even echinaceas, for example.

Even if you can't succession plant another flower, you could plant a cover crop to improve your soil for next season.

Thanks annebert, I could probably get a crop of zinnias at that time, excellent idea. Thanks for the other suggestions too, I am so glad to have this forum to go to. Kat

I too will be growing cut flowers (and vegetables) for market in a very limited amount of space so I'm interested in this thread as well.

One thought I had was that given limited space it's probably not as worthwhile to grow flowers that take a lot of space for few stems and/or can only be cut once. Thus sunflowers might be a poor choice for those of us with limit space. Better choices would probably be flowers that will fork and rebloom when cut or bloom continuously like Dahlias.

Another thing that I've been considering is the value per square foot of various crops. This type of information seems to be more readily available for food crops than for cut flowers, although the food crop information tends to be given in a value per acre which is a much larger scale than I need. I did find one interesting table that calculates the most profitable plants for your vegetable garden. It would certainly be useful to have a similar chart for cut flowers. Perhaps if we dig deeper into greenhouse cut flower production we would find this info since the value per square foot is of greater interest to greenhouse growers due to their high production costs per square foot.

One web page I was perusing listed the following info as part of a Tentative Scenario for growing Zinnias.

"Income: $2.00/bunch, with 10 stems/bunch. A single planting would average $2,600 (1.3 stems/sq. ft x 10,000 sq. ft. = 13,000 stems/10 stems/bunch x $2.00/bunch = $2,600). A higher value crop or successive plantings would naturally yield more income."

That's rather depressing! Of course it is rather old information from 2000 but it does point out the sort of calculations that need to be done if one is going to make it a profitable business. It also illustrates that wholesale monoculture production is obviously NOT the way to go for small growers! ;)

- Steve

Perhaps if we dig deeper into greenhouse cut flower production we would find this info since the value per square foot is of greater interest to greenhouse growers due to their high production costs per square foot. I believe this information is out there. Today we were looking for an idea for an article which I need to write. Thank you for the suggestion. One point if I may: Sunflowers may not be high dollar crops; however, growing them in a hoophouse is not beyond the realm of some of us growers because admittedly we do. Sometimes we need to look beyond some of the "high production costs" hyperbole. Sunflowers are what we like to refer to as our "bread and butter" crops both under cover and grown in the field.

"Income: $2.00/bunch, with 10 stems/bunch. A single planting would average $2,600 (1.3 stems/sq. ft x 10,000 sq. ft. = 13,000 stems/10 stems/bunch x $2.00/bunch = $2,600). A higher value crop or successive plantings would naturally yield more income." These statistics are going on 10 years old. Which you have brought to our attention; however, I don't think I would be too depressed. Zinnias are a crop that can be succession sown the entire season even on a small scale. Plant, harvest, till, compost, plant again, and on it goes. Many specialty cut flower growers are growing on very small pieces of land.

It also illustrates that wholesale monoculture production is obviously NOT the way to go for small growers! ;) I'm going to have to disagree. Again, many small specialty cut flowers growers have niche markets.

Trish

>> Again, many small specialty cut flowers growers
>> have niche markets.

Let me think about that a bit... You know, actually I CAN see how it would be possible to make good money specializing in something like lilies. Casa Blanca and Acapulco are going for about $3 a stem on the Boston wholesale market. Planting 3 per square foot you could fit 30,000 in a 1/4 acre and gross $90,000! Easy money... ;) Ha, ha, ha! I'm sure things would get real complicated real fast...

Or, Dahlias!! Just today I talked to a cut flower grower about Dahlias of all things. Imagine that. The interesting thing is that she is in Virginia. She sells to upscale florists. She is able to get $3/stem wholesale for the smaller size BB and M Dahlias, and more for the size A and AA.

Regarding the lilies. Those are best grown in bulb crates. They're planted tight at 20-24 per crate. So, how many bulb crates do you suppose a 20 x 96 hoophouse would hold? BTW Casa Blanca is really pretty; however, they are also one of the most popular lilies imported into this country.

Trish

Steve - the other thing to consider is where you will be selling and when. I can not sell lilies profitably to florists or stores when the Oregon lily growers are selling them wholesale! I do fine after their main season is over (i.e August on). Also, I can't compete selling daffodils/tulips to the grocery stores that have "specials" on these from the really big growers. So, I don't! I take them to smaller shops and may try the florists this year.

I plant lilies in crates every 3 weeks starting in mid-May through early July and have them into mid-October weather depending...lost over 300 stems last year due to very early hard frosts! But, planted these in new raised beds, so...hopefully this year I'll have lots!

I don't have a lot of space to succession plant much, other than I save space for 2 plantings of agrostemma and bupleurum and try to space out my sunflowers with shorter growing days, but I always get behind...the best laid plans you know!

Trish - wow $3/stem for dahlias! I'd love $1.00! But, don't think that will happen here...

Thanks for all the good sources and ideas - Good luck!
Wendy

>> the other thing to consider is where you will
>> be selling and when

This is a very good point and since this is just my first season I'm not going to invest a big chunk of money on any one specialty flower. I'm going to start with an interesting array of choices and see what sells well and grows well for me. Each region is different and each market is unique.

- Steve