This is my first post. I'm a total newbie. This heat wave really sucks. I have veg flower beds on the hottest sides of my house. I had one really good year where a mix of very tall corn, sunflowers, and beans I ended up picking from the windows shaded the house.
I have earnestly tried to repeat this. The squirrels and birds however are on to me and have been helping themselves. I had to replant my corn as it didn't come up the first time, someone snacked. And the second batch of corn isn't even going to crop. Its three or four feet tall. I did have some unplanted self seeding sunflowers come up. Monsters thick as tree trunks and a good 12 to 14 feet tall. I was planning to save the seeds from the biggest one.
Of course the trunk of these sunflowers easily supports the weight of several squirrels, and so do the seed heads. The seeds didn't even ripen. They are all gone. And of course the squirrels are looking at me like they are starving and why didn't I put more out for them.
Next year I am going to try bloody butcher corn and more sunflowers. I might put something over the soil until everything comes up. Maybe a hoop structure, as the chickens think baby corn is yummy.
