That Hopkins Kid

Natural bird feeders found in sunflowers

In the Midwest, growing sunflowers is usually something that just happens to you. They pop up in the fencerow or the soybean field—uninvited, unloved, and just out of reach of the sprayer.

But one summer, Beth and I decided to grow them… on purpose. Not for bouquets. Not for a photo opp. Not even for seeds. We were going to grow whole sunflower heads, dry them out, and sell them as all-natural bird feeders. We even had a slogan: Sunfollower Sunflowers—The Back to Nature Bird Feeder.

Honestly, I don’t remember who came up with the idea. It sounded simple enough. Plant. Grow. Harvest. Sell. You know, just like every other wildly unpredictable crop in history.

We got our seed from a local dealer, a black oilseed sunflower, the kind birds love and soybean farmers don’t. Dad let us a corner of the field on the Rhea place, where the old hog lot had been. The ground was rough from years of pork-related compaction, but rich. And those sunflowers thrived. They stretched tall and stubborn under a full Missouri sun, turning their faces from east to west each day like a Broadway star tracking the spotlight.

We didn’t advertise the field, but people found it anyway. Mostly in the evenings, when the light hit just right. It wasn’t hard to see why. A whole field of tall golden blooms, watching the sun set in unison? It looked like a screensaver for the soul.

Eventually, the flowers stopped following the sun, which was a sign they were drying and almost ready to harvest. That was the plan: let them dry on the stalk, cut the heads with a few inches of stem, and sell them at farmers markets as natural bird feeders you could hang on a fence. Bonus points if customers smeared them with peanut butter and rolled them in birdseed.

But apparently, the birds had also been reading our business plan.

One evening, we got the call: the birds had arrived. En masse. Hitchcock-level. All-you-can-eat. We looked into scare cannons, but they were pricey. So we did the next best thing: we went to work.

It was Labor Day weekend. It was over 100 degrees. And we were about to learn what “labor” really meant.

Harvesting meant bending the plant, cutting the head, and dropping it in a wagon. Easy enough… for five minutes. By hour three, I was lying on the floor of the house, trying to re-enter my body. That kind of sweat teaches you to appreciate every old family story about “working from sunup to sundown.” And it made us really start respecting the raccoons. Those guys were eating for free.

We soon realized the heads were still too wet to bag. So we borrowed the barn at Grandma and Grandpa Alexander’s and turned it into a DIY sunflower-drying facility. We hung livestock panels from the rafters and wove the stems through the grids. We could shut the doors to keep the birds out and let nature dry them out.

It worked. After a few weeks, the heads were crisp, dry, and beautiful. We bagged them up six to a sack, with the kids slipping in our bright yellow product labels and closing each bag with a yellow twist tie.

Market day came. The kids wore sunflower-print aprons Beth had sewn (with pockets for change). They handed out bags, practiced customer service, and learned to count cash like tiny entrepreneurs. We didn’t sell out, but we sold enough to feel proud. And when we didn’t sell? No problem. The extras went into trash barrels, and the next summer we ran them through the combine, ending up with 75 gallons of sunflower seed we sold at garage sales.

Today, I’ve seen more companies selling whole sunflower heads for birds. And I smile. Because I know what it takes to grow them, cut them, dry them, bag them, and get them to market, while fending off birds, heat, and gravity.

It’s not just a flower. It’s an adventure. One with sweat, laughter, and a few feathers.

Because if you plant it, they will come.
Especially the birds.

Tom Brand is a native of Hopkins, with more than 30 years in farm broadcasting and rural storytelling. He currently serves as director of the St. Joseph Community Alliance. He and his wife, Beth, live in St. Joseph, where they now evaluate every crop idea with just one question: how many trash barrels will this require later? Check out his book, “Welts on Your Butt a Calf Could Suck,” available at RichardsonPress.com or pick up a copy at the Nodaway News Leader.