Would you share a link on sunflower houses? I have a 4 year old also. We can brainstorm together.

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/wtrsow/msg04123119417.html?1

that's the first link I found, and this one has info on a cucumber tunnel and bean teepees

http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/gl_structures_other/0,1784,HGTV_3639,00.html

and the one below is for Kidsgardening.com they also have info.

I guess you can also make tunnels w/ pumpkins

Here is a link that might be useful: KidsGardening- Sunflower House

Thanks for the links, kek. The first one brought me back to this thread, so I went to the "Gardening with Kids" forum and did a search for "sunflower house". I'm so glad you shared this idea. I had set aside all but the Peredovik sunflowers for this year, but now I have to change my mind. With a little luck this will be ready for birthday party at the end of August.

I think in addition to morning glories on strings for the roof, I will also plant the airy cypress vine to help fill in the walls. Maybe hummingbirds will visit my child?

I wasn't able see the cucumber tunnel you were talking about, but coincentally I was searching GW last night for a functional cucumber trellis. On the Vegetable forum there are a couple of great posts by hunter_tx who uses cattle panels for arches. Scroll down to about the 17th post for a link to a picture; the instructions to make it are little further down. http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/cornucop/msg0508445315101.html
For a kid's tunnel I might just use an 8' instead of the full 16'

Last year my husband made functional green bean teepees from bamboo and string using a knot called the clove hitch.
http://www.iland.net/~jbritton/clovehitch.htm
The teepees were tall and narrow. I would suggest going shorter and wider for a play toy.

Here's what else is great about this: Number One Dad won't balk at giving up more lawn for something for his child. What a very clever way to eliminate more of the green stuff. I'm thinking my child needs a VILLAGE!

I think you asked about wintersowing sunflowers, pole beans and morning glories. In my excitement about your post I got a little distracted. I'm new, so take my suggestions with a grain of salt, but I'll share what my plans are. Not enough cold weather left here to WS morning glories so I plan to use the ice cube method I learned about here.
http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/wtrsow/msg030139356970.html

I'll be starting sunflowers, beans and cukes in soda bottles per traditional WS methods. The cypress vine seeds came from Trudi, so it must be good for WSing.

I've been evaluating the "Three Sisters" method of planting corn for the trellis, beans for the climbing crop, and squash (in my case maybe cucumbers) for the mulch. I'll bet we can work some corn in somewhere. Wouldn't herbs like Basil Spicy Globe make nice "shrubs" for a Mother of Thyme sidewalk? Sweet peas are bound to fit in too.

kek19, thanks for sharing this here. As I think of more ideas I will share and hope you will do the same.

Winter sowing has just rocked my world! I can't imagine ever again living the limited life of starting seeds under lights! Yowza!

I am planning on planting a sunflower fort this year. I've never done one, but it sounds like SO much fun. I am thinking about doing a half circle, with our privacy fence as the back, that way it won't take up as much yard space. Plus, I think I might like a round shape better. I'm planning on planting morning glories at the moment. I thought about sweet peas, but I don't know if they'll make it through the summer heat. At this point, I think I'm just going to direct sow, but I've heard others say sunflowers WS really well.

Sunflowers and morning glories winter-sow very well. Beans, not so great in my experience. But they grow fast so you can probably just direct-sow them after you plant out your other things.

Have fun! Sounds like a great project!
:)
Dee

Oh, sorry about that link, I was using tabbed browsing, must've copied before I switched. I put the link I tried to place in at the bottom.

Here's the link to the cucumber fort, I think I read on one of them you can create a tunnel w/ them or beans or small pumpkins, it's all in how you shape your trellis.

http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/gl_structures_other/article/0,1785,HGTV_3639_3511529,00.html

I was thinking of doing the sunflowers, either round or square, and doing the morning glory roof. I also thought it would be neat to leave a second opening in the house to do a tunnel, (i'll find something to build trellis to shape it) I also was thinking about adding a yellow pear tomato and a cherry tomato plant out front, for little snack trees. Maybe even some carrots to create a walk way to it. Havent thought out all the details yet, I just found out about it this morning. It seems like a great way to creat a veggy garden and have fun too!!

My son's birthday is in aug. too, the 21st!

Here is a link that might be useful: sunflower house

kek19, I really like your idea about tomatoes for snack trees. It inspired me to put my newly acquired Malabar spinach seeds in pots to use as topiaries at the front door.

Nasturtiums might also work well next to the morning glories, and they are often used in salads.

I'm doing not quite a playhouse with sunflowers, but I'm using them to line a path my children like to run on, so instead of just a path it will be a "secret passage" through the garden.

He's a semi-mock-up drawing of what I have planned. I haven't decided if I'm going a single layer of sunflowers alternating mammoth and smaller ones, like in this pic. Or doing a double layer, all mammoth in back, and the med in front. I'm also not sure of where and how many morning glories to plant. Would you plant on the outside of the sunflowers, inbetween, or on the inside???

{{gwi:376069}}

Oh and I found these great little 2ft by 1ft tall plastic fencing at a Family dollar store. $1 a piece!! They have some that are the "white picket" fence look, some have like 4 colored tulips connected and some that are green, w/ large sunflowers faces connected. I thought they'd work really well for the walk way and to kinda border the front.

Wow! That's quite a plan. It looks great! I like the idea of having vegetables to snack on. I could try some patio tomatoes, since they shouldn't get too large. My fort is definitely going to be smaller scale than yours, lol.

I'm going to use short fencing around mine ... that way it will be easier for DH when he weed-eats. I actually haven't told him about this yet . . . not sure how excited he'll be ;)

I'm going to alternate Sunflower Taiyo and Sunflower Solar Eclipse. According to valueseeds, they're supposed to get 10 ft. and 6 ft. tall. I am hoping to have extra WS flowers to fill in any gaps. I think Bachelor Buttons might be pretty . . . but really any extras I have will work.

I am wanting to do a half circle, but I wonder if it will be more difficult to get it symmetrical than a rectangle.

I do have a couple A-frame trellises I am planning to grow zuchetta rampicante (an Italian vining zucchini), sunshine squash (little orange squash shaped similar to small pumpkins), and smaller sized melons. These aren't big enough to crawl through, but I thnk they'll still be fun to look at. I'm hoping this way all the vining stuff won't take up so much space.

It sure fun to dream about this stuff.

>It sure fun to dream about this stuff.isnt it though? the kids and I have been having a riot drawing up ideas. Of course he wants a kitchen and a garage. LOL we'll see..

I've been looking at this garden tunnel idea using pvc pipe. It looked kind of fun but I'm not sure it would be tall enough for my kids. I've also seen photos of a similar tunnel made with cattle panels.

Here is a link that might be useful: Garden Tunnel

If anyone is interested in seeing my progress on the sunflower house, there's a link below to my myspace photo album. We have the actual sunflower house dug up and planted, it ended up being a little bigger than originally planned, about 11.5' x 11.5' :) The pole bean teepee is built, the tunnel is done for the cucumbers, I don't think I put the final pics on though, just the stakes. I haven't done the bed for the melon/squash garden, and I'm hesitating on the the beans and cucumbers too due to my forgetfulness about the orchard farmer spraying the orchard. I've gotten very mixed opinions about growing veggies near they're chemicals. I did a post on the orchard/fruit growers forum and pretty much got the idea that it's not safe, yet everyone around where I live says just use normal washing procedures and all will be fine. Anyways, I'm babbling. The link is below!

Here is a link that might be useful: My Sunflower House Project

I was looking forward to pics, but your link is only bringing up the editing system in Myspace. :(

Do you have a direct link to your album?

Wow, what is it with me and link in this thread??? Sorry, here's the link to VIEW.

Here is a link that might be useful: Sunflower Project Album

OOh, I love the teepee frame. :D
Since Rowan decided it was going to be pointy and not square, teepee it is. *sigh*
I've been trying to come up with a good plan for support and I think you have it. :D

I so hope so, It hasn't been tried yet (with me at least) The veggy forum had some people that assured me that bamboo stakes with twine will hold most climbing veggies. We'll see ;)

Update please!!!! ;-)

Well honestly, there's not much to update. Everything is growing slowly. Most of the sunflowers have reached 2', a few of the shorter ones appear to be developing their bud in the center of the leaves. My morning glories just aren't doing anything out there. (The ones planted out front are finally starting to grow) I have purple vast growing wild everywhere in my yard, those are climbing the sunflowers LOL! My pole beans sprouted and put up their first set of leaves, now are just sitting. My ws cucumbers, only one survived, I ds a bunch, but something keeps digging them up. It looks like I might end up with two or three cukes to climb. We do have some pumkins that sprouted and are growing in a small patch next to the sunflower house. I update the myspace album often, the link is up a few posts in the thread, just make sure you click the second one, not the first.

Here's a quick update pic I took last night, still not much though, but it's only mid June. (I'm standing on a hill looking down at it)

{{gwi:376071}}