By: Amy Hogan Clem
It’s early November and Harvest Time! This is one of my favorite seasons. I’m not much of a pumpkin spice fan, but I truly enjoy the cooler temperatures, the leaves changing colors and the preparations for winter. William Blake, an English poet from the early 1800s said, “In seed-time learn, in harvest teach, and in winter enjoy”. I like that! Let me share what I’ve learned about sunflowers.
Limestone County’s major crops are soybeans, cotton, wheat and corn, according to the USDA National Agricultural Statistical Service, 2026. However, as you drive just outside the city, you are very likely to see fields of sunflowers. Aside from their beauty, sunflowers perform an incredible service! Sunflowers are grown in our hometown primarily for local farm stands for picking and photography venues. Evey Burns is pictured enjoying the beauty of a local sunflower patch.
Some local farmers plant sunflowers as a cover crop. This means they sow these seeds after another harvest such as corn, which takes a lot from the soil. Sunflowers also help to prevent erosion and replenish the topsoil. Sunflowers by design store biomass in their stems rather than in the roots, so they don’t require much digging or disturbing the soil after their growth is complete. They are also easy to grow and require very little water.
After the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in the spring of 1986, engineers planted acres of sunflowers to clean up the soil. Sunflowers absorbed harmful chemicals from the soil and stored them in their stems. Workers then simply cut their stems and destroyed the remains without further disturbing or re-contaminating the soil. Here’s another fun fact about sunflowers: the young flowers tilt their “face” back toward the east during the night after they have followed the sun all day. This natural biological process is called heliotropism. In doing so, the flower heats up faster in the morning and attracts pollinators to perpetuate plant growth. What an amazing Creation!
How exciting it is to enjoy this time of year and appreciate our local farmers who plant by faith, looking forward to a bountiful harvest. The Scriptures tell us in Galatians Chapter 6 to “…not be weary in well doing; for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not” (KJV). Robert Louis Stevenson cautioned us in saying, “Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds that you plant”.
Looking forward,
Amy Hogan Clem
(This porch picture was taken on East Street at the home of Craig and Kerri Calvert, in the Beaty Historic District).
