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After the Harvest
On this page, you’ll enjoy family fun with simple projects both children and adults enjoy, including:
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- Plantings for birds attracted to your garden.
- Hanging ripe sunflowers to make bird-feeding stations.
- Growing birdhouse gourds and making them into birdhouses.
After-the-Harvest Projects
Here are some fun building projects to feed winter-visiting birds and give them nesting spots with plants you grow, such as sunflower seed heads and birdhouse gourds.
Plant, grow, harvest and prepare a feeding station for seed-eating and a nesting gourd birdhouse for cavity-dwelling species.
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Observing bird habits includes watching them eat and seeing them feed their young. It’s thrilling to observe as they quickly find, pick, and crush sunflower seeds to extract the nutritious kernels inside.
The more you look at birds in your garden, the more fascinating features you’ll find. You’ll quickly notice differences that extend beyond their colorful plumage or their musical mastery in song.
Neither providing sunflower seedbeds for birds to eat nor creating a birdhouse in which they’ll rear their young are difficult, but they do require planning for their needs when you choose the plants you’ll grow in your vegetable garden.
Step-By-Step Instructions
Sunflowers yield high-oil, nutritious seeds for seed-eating birds. A single large sunflower plant may produce 500 or more sunflower seeds, served by nature in a convenient, bird-feeding seed head.
Similarly, gourds that dry with sturdy walls and hollow interiors were used for many centuries as containers, utensils and birdhouses. A pair of vines in your garden will grow a dozen or more birdhouse gourds in a single garden season.
Follow the steps shown in each project to plant, grow, harvest and prepare seed heads and gourd birdhouses from your garden for our feathered friends:
Sunflower Seed-Head Feed Station
After the petals drop, cut and hang the seed heads in an airy, warm, dry location for a few weeks to cure the seed.
Hang a support cable from a tree or structure eave, using plastic-coated wire cable. A loop with a chafe-protecting sleeve made of garden hose or drip irrigation supply tube is best.
Secure seed head to the hanger with twine looped under the head. Weight the dried stem to balance the head upright and give birds easy access for eating seed.
Growing Birdhouses
Use your hoe to loosen your garden soil, incorporate any amendments or fertilizers, and raise a mound, 6–8 in. (15–20 cm) tall.
Note the planting depth recommended on the seed package. Atop the mound, use your finger to poke planting holes of that depth. Put two seeds in each hole and cover them with soil. Firm the soil.
Thoroughly water the planting. After the seeds sprout, fill the moat with water once or twice a week. The vines will grow, flower, and form gourds. Harvest when vines die.
Using a drill mounted with a 1-1/2-in. (38-mm) bit, cut a hole into the gourd. Remove all fiber and seeds remaining inside the gourd. Mounting a 1/4-in. (6-mm) bit, drill a hole centered beneath the large opening.
Insert a 6-in. (15-cm) length of 1/4-in. (6-mm) dowel stock into the lower hole to make a perch. Attach a cup hook at the top. The birdhouse is ready to hang.
DIY do-it-yourself how-to step-by-step steps home improvement instruction directions demonstration method methods tip recommendation technique techniques guide example explain explanation hobby hobbies garden gardener gardening vegetable vegetables plant planting plants harvest harvesting picking gathering seeds seed heads dry drying cure curing hang hanger warm cure dry secure plastic coated wire cable chafe protection garden hose drip irrigation tube tubing twine bird birds seed-eating cavity dwelling gourd birdhouse utensils soil amendments fertilizer mound moat depth firm vines grow care mature drill bit entry hole perch hole dowel perch cup hook