Sunflowers at Full Bloom #sunflowerchallenge2019

It took me 3 months for this moment....

From starting my seeds....

To watering everyday....

To defending the container from an ant invasion!

and now finally, my sunflowers have bloomed!

For #sunflowerchallenge2019, hosted by Nick's Allotment Diary, I planted a flat of Mammoth Russian Sunflower Seeds. These are supposed to grow over 12' tall in ideal growing conditions, as you can see from last year's crop pictured here.

So how tall and how large of head size did these sunflowers grow?

Let's take a look.

Here are the 4 sunflowers that have bloomed. The first one that bloomed, (9/4/19) grew 22 1/2" tall and had a 1" diameter head. That's 57.2 cm tall and 2.54 cm head for those using the metric system. Obviously not the biggest in this competition, but it certainly brightened my day.

The largest and tallest sunflower bloomed a few days later... Well half bloomed for the first 2 days.
This one grew to 40" tall and 3" head diameter. 101.6 cm tall and 7.62 cm head. Pretty cool!

The others weren't measured but you get the idea that sunflowers won't grow too large when in containers. But they do grow to a nice manageable size that's right near your face. Very cool! For next time I grow these in containers, I'll be sure to fertilize more as that should help them grow taller.

So once these fellas are pollinated and die off, I'll harvest the seeds to grow next year's crop.

I'd like to thank Nick's Allotment Diary for organizing this YouTube competition. Be sure to check out his videos and the videos from everyone else who grew sunflowers this year's challenge.

For more backstory on how I got here, watch/read the following:

Watch the beginning of my challenge

Watch as the Sunflowers are Defended from Ants

See when the first Sunflower Bloomed