I was quietly eating my lunch at The Oak Tree Low Carbon Farm when I heard a fuss of activity around the sunflowers. A charm of goldfinches had descended onto them and were furiously eating the seeds, which is impressive because the seed heads seem rock solid to me.
My sunflowers are a mix of varieties from the striking burgundy Velvet Queen to the delicate pale Italian White. They have been very popular as cut flowers at my local Country Market always bringing a gasp of appreciation from queuing customers as I rush past, late as usual with my produce, just before the market opens. The sunflowers are coming to an end now, but rather than grub them up I plan to leave the seed heads on the stems for the birds over the winter.
We import an enormous volume of cut flowers into the UK. My local florist explains that it is almost impossible for her to get locally grown cut flowers, except for daffodils in spring and sweet peas grown by her father-in-law. So growing cut flowers seems like a good thing for a low carbon farm, and next year I plan to expand from my current limited range of dahlias (donated by a neighbour and looking very pretty), cosmos and sunflowers.
The sweetcorn has just started to ripen, odd tassels here and there have dried out to a promising brown colour, the cobs swelling under their green sheaves. They are selling well from my self service stall and despite cooking my first cobs in salted water (the salt is supposed to make the kernels go hard during cooking) they were sweet and delicious, and remind me of my grandmother's kitchen garden in the Suffolk countryside.
Joanne Brannan runs The Oak Tree Low Carbon Farm in Suffolk. She writes for UK magazines including Country Smallholding and Grow it!
