How to Harvest and Store Sunflower Seeds

You can tell the sunflower seeds are ready for harvest when the flower head is drooping down from the weight of the seeds, and the petals have dried and fallen off. The seeds will fall off easily when you gently brush the flower head. Make sure the flower head is dried out enough before harvesting.

1. Cut the flower head off of the plant.

2. Shake and brush to remove seeds

3. Dry the seeds and store in a paper envelope

The Louisville Seedbank project is a pilot program by Beargrass Thunder and Louisville Grows using donated seeds from various non-profits, business groups, and community residents in the city. The goal is to cultivate varieties of native plants and edible food that is resistant to the Urban Heat Island Effect and can grow in the microclimates of urban Louisville neighborhoods.

For now, the pilot is focused on the Smoketown, Shelby Park, and Russell neighborhoods with the hope of eventually replicating the project city-wide. We want checking out seeds to be as easy to checking out books from a library. Eventually we can find which seeds and cultivars of plants survive Louisville's wild temperature swings and withstand the Urban Heat Island Effect.