AUGUST

THE EIGHTH MONTH • 2021 AUGUST HATH 31 DAYS

It is so deep in summer now / The pasture bars are almost hid In daisies, where I call my cow / And listen to the katydid. –Anna Boynton Averill

Farmer's Calendar

Every year I remember to do so, I plant a row of sunflowers in my vegetable patch; and every year I forget, I miss them. The sunflower is one of the flowers that every garden should by no means be without. I understand there are 70 species of sunflower (genus Helianthus), perennials and annuals, wild and cultivated, some grown for crops, most for fun. Some of the perennials are demure and well-mannered flowers. They do not interest me. I like the big, loud annuals that produce flowers the size of dinner plates, having raggedy, butter-yellow petals and fat, bulging centers. These flowers are essential because of their high spirits and because the sunflower is all flowers, the epitome.

There is something touching about the sunflower as well, something to do with its famous turning after the Sun. You can see its heavy flowerhead bend on its stalk to follow the Sun through its daily arc. That faithful, mechanical movement has a sadness: Its faint sorrow marks the passing summer. Especially at this time of year, the Sun it watches is going away unmistakably farther each day, and where it's going, the rooted sunflower can't follow.

Listen to the Farmer's Calendar at Almanac.com/Podcast.