Sunflowers grow really well on our property. They barely need to be planted. Sunflowers grow voluntarily from birds and chipmunks dropping them on the ground all the time. I planted several in areas we'll expand the garden into next season. I mowed the grass down with some hedge trimmers, then poked a small hole in the ground and dropped a seed in. Some germinated about a week later. I also scattered some clover seeds around. Hopefully the sunflowers will overtake the grass and the clover will survive through the summer into the fall.
I probably planted the sunflowers too deep. It seems like it would have been sufficient to just scratch a small divot in the ground and cover it with some dirt to keep birds from eating the seeds, or make some seed balls with dirt to accomplish the same thing without even poking a hole in the ground.
We also planted some strawberries using a similar method in the newly expanded garden. The strawberries were started inside from plugs that we planted in peat pots using coir and worm castings as soil. A couple weeks later, the strawberries are still doing well. The only problem with this approach is that the soil near the berries is more compact than the coir/worm castings, so the berries are in a sort of bowl. A couple of them seem to be a little stressed and are possibly sitting in some water.
The strawberries are surrounded by straw, plus some leaf mulch compost that's been aged about a year.
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