Letting Bird Seed Grow

Does anyone else do this, or am I the only slob? I have my bird feeder on a pole hanging over a stone patio. The seed falls mostly on the stones, but some does fall into the garden. Last year I just let whatever "took" grow and go to seed...even some small sun flowers made it. The gold finch just went crazy over it, and I didn't think it looked too bad. Kind of like a mini-meadow. Does anyone else let the seed grow and mature or is there a down side to doing that? I'm trying to dedicate that little area to just bird feeding, since the hulls tend to drown everything else.

I don't mind having a few sunflowers from the seed. Last year I spilled safflower seed into a small rocky area, and had lots of that to pull out. Hope it didn't survive the winter.

I had some sunflowers sprout but unfortunatly the DH weed whacked them! :-(

I would love to have some; I've seen the Goldfinch on the Rudbeckia and they really loved that.

Be careful . . . I've heard of people ending up with a fine crop of Cannabis sativa . . .

Resin

I Have a row of sunflowers on the back of my fence along the alley for the finches and chickadees. These regularly self seed. I've though about adding some of the feeder volunteers to the mix back there. They don't do well anywhere else because my feeders are under trees.

I allow an area of my garden to go "wild" for the birds under the bird feeder. By late summer there are tons of sunflowers that the finches love.

The only thing I do is clean up the area occasionally if there are too many birds in a concentrated area under the feeder eating dropped seeds. I worry about them getting disease by spreading waste droppings in with the seeds. I don't clean it up completely, but at least keep them from eating right under the feeder.

I was surprised the first time this occurred with the certified 100% natural wild bird seed that I was providing to the birds who visited my place. But between having seed available and the supply of guano that the birds left to encourage "more of the same" as the food that they had been eating, some of the wild bird seed germinated in the rocky area surrounding the concrete feeding area that they and I agreed was where to place their feed. Nothing in particular in the way of water nor watering involved. It just grew where it and the birds guano was scattered.

Thanks for the thoughts. I guess I'll just let the birds have their play area. It was so much fun to watch them eat the seed off the actual plants last year that I'm sure this summer will be the same. I'm just shocked at how thick the hull leavings on the ground can get...it's at least two inches thick now. Other plants don't seem to do very well under there, so I'll move everything else and stand back. Last year I looked out to see the gold finches having a ball at one of the sun flowers. Next thing I know I see an entire sunflower head walking up a tree! The squirrel had just bitten the whole head off and run up the tree with it. I can't get mad, I make sure I grow plenty of sunflowers (volunteer and placed their by design), so I thought it was pretty funny. Don't know how the goldfinches felt about their filched food.

That would be a funny site!

LOL, my squirrels do that all the time. Sometimes I see a tomato sitting on a branch in the tree!!!

Resin, the bird seed imported into the United States does contain hemp seed (Cannabis sativa), but federal regulations state that it must be sterilized. Of course nothing is foolproof so a few might sprout.

Yikes, that's interesting! Well, no interesting leaves from the Walmart bird seed that I get. No seed that I've ever tried has been completely sterile, including some very expensive varieties, so that's another reason I just get the cheap stuff and let it go. The birds don't seem to care one way or the other. In fact, I've tried the pre-hulled kind and they seem to make even more of a mess, because they don't know that the sunflower seeds don't have hulls! They keep throwing it around looking for the black seeds. Crazy blue jays...

I was thinking about getting the sunflower hearts for less mess, I guess I won't!

Don't let that stop you; I've never had anything sprout from mine.

Only the hemp seed is sterilized, not the whole package.

I agree that the shells get so deep around the feeder that they suffocate the plants within. The perennials don't do well in it, either. I started using the "no mess blend" and everybody's happy.

For many years I just let the seeds grow. The finches especially enjoy them. But, my garden is full of rudebeckia and coneflowers which goldfinches love in the fall.

Hi OP, neighbor!