TAMAQUA, Pa. — Residents from across Schuylkill county picked sunflowers for the last time this season at Second Mountain Sunflowers in Tamaqua.
“I wanna go out with the wow effect. I don't want people to come here and see dead flowers and spotted flowers,” said Farmer Ken Smith, Second Mountain Sunflowers Owner.
Due to the recent dry weather, Second Mountain Sunflowers is closing two weeks earlier compared to their sunflower seasons in years past.
“Our last field technically shouldn't have come in till September 3rd, but with the dry season, everything gets accelerated,” Farmer Smith said.
He says the deep soil on the farm saved the sunflowers this season. Otherwise, they wouldn't have survived.
“The first rain was the one early on when I first planted them, and that was enough to get them up out of the ground. But we should've had another one to grow the stem and another one to grow the flower and open it up,” Farmer Smith added.
While he's sad to see the sunflower season come to an end, the Ukraine situation has allowed Farmer Smith to harvest the sunflowers for the first time in his farming career.
“The oil for the sunflowers. The demand is so high that I got a phone call and asked if I could combine mine and bring them up to them so they can process the oil,” he said.
With this now being their seventh year planting sunflowers, none of their past seasons have been like this.
“Well, one thing with sunflowers is you cannot plan anything. The flowers will tell you how to plant,” added Farmer Smith.
Check out WNEP’s YouTube channel.