Sunflowers, sweet corn, goldenrod, crook neck squash, the juicy flesh of ripe peaches, and many other harvest-time goodies … they all suggest that yellow is August’s favorite color. The saffron beauty of sunflowers attracts bees and artists alike.
Susan Sharkey 
Denise Botkin 
Joan 
Mary Ann 
Michele 
Debra Brown 
Kim Manning 
Lori 
Doris -
Debbie Bosworth
is a certified farmgirl at heart. She’s happily married to her beach bum Yankee husband of 20 years. She went from career gal to being a creative homeschooling mom for two of her biggest blessings and hasn’t looked back since. Debbie left her lifelong home in the high desert of Northern Nevada 10 years ago and washed up on the shore of America’s hometown, Plymouth, MA, where she and her family are now firmly planted. They spend part of each summer in a tiny, off–grid beach cottage named “The Sea Horse.”
“I found a piece of my farmgirl heart when I discovered MaryJanesFarm. Suddenly, everything I loved just made more sense! I enjoy unwinding at the beach, writing, gardening, and turning yard-sale furniture into ‘Painted Ladies’ I’m passionate about living a creative life and encouraging others to ‘make each day their masterpiece.’”
Rebekah Teal
is a “MaryJane Farmgirl” who lives in a large metropolitan area. She is a lawyer who has worked in both criminal defense and prosecution. She has been a judge, a business woman and a stay-at-home mom. In addition to her law degree, she has a Masters of Theological Studies.
“Mustering up the courage to do the things you dream about,” she says, “is the essence of being a MaryJane Farmgirl.” Learning to live more organically and closer to nature is Rebekah’s current pursuit. She finds strength and encouragement through MaryJane’s writings, life, and products. And MaryJane’s Farmgirl Connection provides her a wealth of knowledge from true-blue farmgirls.
Cathi Belcher
an old-fashioned farmgirl with a pioneer spirit, lives in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. As a “lifelong learner” in the “Live-Free-or-Die” state, she fiercely values self-reliance, independence, freedom, and fresh mountain air. Married to her childhood sweetheart of 40+ years (a few of them “uphill climbs”), she’s had plenty of time to reinvent herself. From museum curator, restaurant owner, homeschool mom/conference speaker, to post-and-beam house builder and entrepreneur, she’s also a multi-media artist, with an obsession for off-grid living and alternative housing. Cathi owns and operates a 32-room mountain lodge. Her specialty has evolved to include “hermit hospitality” at her rustic cabin in the mountains, where she offers weekend workshops of special interest to women.
“Mountains speak to my soul, and farming is an important part of my heritage. I want to pass on my love of these things to others through my writing. Living in the mountains has its own particular challenges, but I delight in turning them into opportunities from which we can all learn and grow.”
Dori Troutman
Dori Troutman is the daughter of second generation cattle ranchers in New Mexico. She grew up working and playing on the ranch that her grandparents homesteaded in 1928. That ranch, with the old adobe home, is still in the family today. Dori and her husband always yearned for a ranch of their own. That dream came true when they retired to the beautiful green rolling hills of Tennessee. Truly a cattleman’s paradise!
Dori loves all things farmgirl and actually has known no other life but that. She loves to cook, craft, garden, and help with any and all things on their cattle farm.
Mary Murray
describes herself as a goat charmer, chicken whisperer, bee maven, and farmers’ market baker renovating an 1864 farmhouse on an Ohio farm. With a degree in Design, Mary says small-town auctions and country road barn sales "always make my heart skip a beat thinking about what I could create or design out of what I’ve seen.”
Rooted in the countryside, she likes simple things and old ways … gardening, preserving the harvest, cooking, baking, and all things home. While you might find her selling baked goods from the farm’s milkhouse, teaching herself to play the fiddle, or sprucing up a vintage camper named Maizy, you will always find her in an apron!
Mary says, “I’m happiest with the simple country pleasures … an old farmhouse, too many animals, a crackling fire, books to read, and the sound of laughter … these make life just perfect.”
Alexandra Wilson
is a budding rural farmgirl living in Palmer, the agricultural seat of Alaska. Alex is a graduate student at Alaska Pacific University pursuing an M.S. in Outdoor and Environmental Education. She lives and works on the university’s 700 acre environmental education center, Spring Creek Farm. When Alex has time outside of school, she loves to rock climb, repurpose found objects, cross-country ski on the hay fields, travel, practice yoga, and cook with new-fangled ingredients.
Alex grew up near the Twin Cities and went to college in Madison, Wisconsin—both places where perfectly painted barns and rolling green farmland are just a short drive away. After college, she taught at a rural middle school in South Korea where she biked past verdant rice paddies and old women selling home-grown produce from sidewalk stoops. She was introduced to MaryJanesFarm after returning, and found in it what she’d been searching for—a group of incredible women living their lives in ways that benefit their families, their communities, and the greater environment. What an amazing group of farmgirls to be a part of!
Nicole Christensen
Suburban Farmgirl Nicole Christensen calls herself a “vintage enthusiast”. Born and raised in Texas, she has lived most of her life in the picturesque New England suburbs of Connecticut, just a stone’s throw from New York State. An Advanced Master Gardener, she has gardened since childhood, in several states and across numerous planting zones. In addition, she teaches knitting classes, loves to preserve, and raises backyard chickens.
Married over thirty years to her Danish-born sweetheart, Nicole has worked in various fields, been a world-traveler, an entrepreneur and a homemaker, but considers being mom to her now-adult daughter her greatest accomplishment. Loving all things creative, Nicole considers her life’s motto to be “Bloom where you are planted”.
Shery, First I have to admit this is my first comment despite lurking since I joined MJF. I love your blog. It is the first one I check. Thanks for going to the trouble and taking the time to make it so enjoyable!
Now my sunflower story … I planted sunflowers outside my west facing kitchen window once many years ago. My sister came to visit around 6 one evening and I was so excited to show her how well they had grown. She gazed out the window and with a quizzical look on her face said "They are beautiful but why didn’t you plant them facing the window?" My laughter made her mad and to this day the subject of sunflowers is taboo. Paine’s poem brought that memory back. Thanks for the remembered laughter!
Sister #2880 CMac
I just love this article. I have been planting the huge Mammoth flowers to border my Chicken coop and raised garden. I would love to get some merlot sunflower seeds.
I harvest my seeds for snacks…soak them in salt water and roast them the next day! I still have some left so I may just cut them for decorating this fall. Thanks again for your article.
Simply stunning…oh, how I love their faces. I have just had a hankering for some photos of them this year….thanks for the fabulous post…as always!
I adore your blog posts and always read as soon as I get your email from Mary Jane. Your photos are always fabulous and so interesting.
I do love sunflowers and this post is beyond excellent!
Thanks for sharing all you do with us Shery!
Smiles, Cyndi
Here on my Colorado ranch I only have a single Sunflower, but every year I can count on it coming back. It is a little bigger every year. It always makes me smile to see it return year after year.
Colorado Cowgirl.
Oh how I love sunflowers. They just cheer you up looking at them.
You are an amazing lady. Love to read your blog and see what you are up to next. I just have to share about this lovely sour cream that can be made out of sunflower seeds.
1 Cup Sunflower Seeds (Raw) (Roasted can be used, but the raw blends better and is better for you. )
1 1/2 cup water
1 tsp. onion powder
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 tsp. Salt
1 fresh lemon- Squeezed
Place all the above ingredients in your blender and whiz until creamy and smooth. The longer you blend it the smoother it will be. (About 5 minutes)
If not thick enough, add a few more nuts.
If too thick, add a little more water.
Enjoy it on your favorite baked potato, or tacos, or your favorite Salad, Brocalli etc.
Much better for you than the High Cholesterol real Sour Cream.
I love making this. Hope you will like it too. And you’ll be
excited about what can be made when your lovely sunflowers are mature.
Thanks again for taking the time to share with us each month!! Jan
A BIG HELLO FROM MY LITTLE PART OF THE WORLD.. SUNNY SOUTH FLORIDA !
I HAVE WRITTEN BEFORE … I WAS THE ONE THAT THOUGHT "WHAT WOULD I HAVE IN COMMON WITH A RANCH GIRL" AS I LIVE WITH ONE FOOT IN THE COUNTRY AND ONE FOOT IN THE BIG CITY OF PALM BEACH FLORIDA.
BUT THE ANSWER IS I SEEM TO HAVE LOTS IN COMMON WITH THE RANCH GIRL ! I JUST LOVE YOUR BLOG AND THE WAY YOU DECORATE.
IT ALWAYS FASCINATES ME THAT AROUND THE WORLD THERE IS A SMALL GROUP THAT DECORATES AND LOVES THE SAME JUNKTIQUES THAT I LOVE !
I RECENTLY RENEWED MY SUBCRTION TO MARYJANES FARM … AND LOW AND BEHOLD THE FIRST ISSUE I GOT WAS THE WONDERFUL ARTICLE ABOUT ALL THE THINGS YOU COLLECT !
DO ANY OF YOU OTHER FARMGIRLS OUT THERE FIND THIS INTERESTING … WHEN YOU MEET PEOPLE WHO LIKE THE SAME KIND OF "JUNK" THAT YOU LIKE … YET YOU NEVER MET.
WELL SIGNING OFF FOR NOW … I WONDER IF THERE ARE ANY OTHER TRANSPLANTED FARMGIRLS DOWN HERE IN SOUTH FLORIDA ?
FROM REBECCA HERE AT SUNNYBROOK FARM !
Thank you for this lovely post. My home is known as The Sunflower Ranch here in central Arizona. We love our sunflowers.
I’ve grown the teddybear sunflowers and must say they grew taller than the three feet listed on the packet. They were more like six feet. Gorgeous flowers because they always make me smile. I have a few in my garden also and one that seems to be pushing nine feet–Russian Mammoth. Thank you for sharing your sunflowers.
I really enjoyed reading your blog – I have in my spare time been working on a revised book of the secret language of flowers – Sunflowers say, "I admire you and desire to look upon you always. And as the the sun moves across the sky, east to west, my flower head follows the sunlight and rays – so do I desire to follow you. As the sunflower head droops and fades when the sun is gone from the sky, so do I miss you and long for you when you are not near me." Like a heliotrope turning toward sun light, so I turn toward you as you are the bright light in my life." Say all these things by giving sunflowers to the one you love.
YAHOO FOR SUNFLOWERS! This year is the first that hubby and I actually didn’t plant any sunflowers, we relied on the volunteers that pop up in the compost bed and other places in the veggie garden area. We went to a neighborhood BBQ and my closest neighbor (over the fence) told us how she missed the regular group that peeked over the fence line each year. Guess what?? Next year we will plant some more in that area.
I also have tried to save seeds and end up with a completely different version of flower. Could it be something to do with cross pollination???
Shery my dear,
As always I can count on you for a colorful blog both in words and images! I too enjoy Sunflowers. Everything from the range of colors and sizes to the sentiment of sunniness too! When we left Nevada for the east coast we drove across our great United States in the last week of July. Guess what we saw mile and miles, acres upon acres of? SUNFLOWERS! It was then that I learned Kansas was the Sunflower state and I finally understood what " the heartland of America was ". It’s easy to take for granted where the ingredients for many of the products made for us come from until you see it first hand. I gained a great appreciation for the growers of the heartland after driving through it… As for my own little patch of earth, I’ve grown Mammoth Sunflowers, and kids sized ones too, and some of my favorite perennials are in the sunflower family: ( Prairie Sun ) Helianthus Maximiliani, and new to my garden this year, Lemon Queen which has small paler yellow blossoms and grows to 96 inches tall in one season! Heliopsis is another favorite of mine that grows 3-6 feet high… I leave the flower heads on for the entire winter for the birds.
YOUR sunflowers are delightful and I love the deeper colored ones… Great way to ease into fall color…Thanks as always for a wonderful blog! You’ve done it again!
xo
Deb ( beachy farmgirl )
I plant sunflowers every year. Although this year I put them in late and they are very little and not much to look at. I will find a new spot next year. Have a great week Shery!
I have one row just for sun flowers in my garden in South Dakota!!!!
I love sunflowers, but I’ve never grown them. Maybe next year…but I do LOVE the color that’s the first burst right before all the fall colors really kick into high gear. As we slide into reds and oranges and golds and browns, the yellows of late summer are a great last hurrah!