Not awful, not as good as almond milk though. I used 1c. soaked seeds, 4 soaked dates, and a tablespoon of vanilla blended with 3 c. of water. It wasn't quite sweet enough so I added some honey which helped but still had a watery taste. Next batch I am trying with 2c. water. So it seems to be a good substitute for almond milk for recipes but I am not sure I would like drinking much of it. I did find that mixing it 50/50 with almond milk works great. You still get the almond milk taste with a hint of the sunflower. So it makes a great and cheap almond milk extender. At less than $2 a pound for raw sunflower seeds, I can get nearly a gallon of milk from a pound so I can cut the cost of my almond milk way down which is exciting.

I made pumpkin seed mylk and loved it. I used Ani Phyo's recipe from her first book--I think the ratio was 1/2 cup seeds to 4 cups water. But it was rich (you put a few dates in it, too). I have always thought about sunflower seeds because of the price but you can get pumpkin seeds a lot cheaper than nuts. The only problem is that I just read that many of the pumpkin seeds are coming from China these days! And I also wonder about rawness, even when it is labeled this way...

I will have to try pumpkin milk. I am not sure the source of the sunflower seeds. These are definitely raw...at least not roasted. I can't confirm that they are not pasteurized but I haven't read anything about sunflower seeds being treated like almonds. But if they are coming from overseas it wouldn't surprise me if something was done to them to help preserve them for their trip over here.

Pumpkins and sunflowers are so easy to grow, you can plant them anywhere there is a bit of soil (well, sunflowers anyhow, pumpkins need more nutrients and space). So easy to collect the seeds for milks, you don't even have to shell the pumpkins, just blend and strain. They are pretty inexpensive in the fall, even the organic ones. That way you know they are local, haven't been heat treated in any way either.

Very true...only thing is I would have to grow a LOT of sunflowers and pumpkins to supply a years worth of seed for milk...lol...I plan to use the sunflower milk to replace the much more expensive almond milk and maybe use almond milk on occasion as a treat.

I don't know, a large pumpkin has an awful lot of seeds. If you tell your friends and family they might hand over their halloween seedies too you, I always have way more than I can use. And one sunflower makes a lot of seeds too, plant a dozen of them and you'd have quite the harvest. Might not be enough on it's own but it would surely make a dent in the amount you need to buy.
What are you doing with all this mylk anyhow, do you drink it on a daily basis?

at least from my experience, when growing sunflowers or pumpkins, you will get a MUCH higher yield vs space and work from pumpkins than you will from sunflowers, sunflowers will do better in poorer soil, but you still have to make sure that soil has good drainage, or else your sunflowers will rot from the bottom up... where as pumpkins can handle a variety of soil types rather well, they just need decent soil quality and nutrients, and for the amount of space used, pumpkins will still produce more food all around for you, with both seeds AND flesh being edible and delicious...

If space is a real problem, you CAN grow smaller varieties of sweeter pie pumpkins on a strong trellis, I did it, and I just support the fruits by covering them in an old sock that would be thrown out normally and tying it to the trellis, or soft mesh bags, a number of things could work, although I wouldn't use plastic bags, Plastic mesh could work but will put a pattern on them, not really an issue though... pantyhose work REALLY well as they expand the easiest with the growing pumpkin, and are fairly tough...I also reduce watering near the end of the growing season, to basically scare the plant into packing as much nutrients as it can into the yummy pumpkins while it is still able to... It tended to get sweeter and have a darker colored flesh when I did that...

It might be too late to plant pumpkins here but I might try some sunflowers just to see what happens and how much seed I can get.

As far as the milk...yeah...I drink it daily. I also use it in banana ice cream and once in awhile a splash in my green fruit smoothie.

Next year I am planning on trying to grow some melons vertically. I have several growing on the ground this year and they are doing excellent. I like the space saving idea of doing them on a trellis though since they take up so much real estate on the ground.

yeah, plus its just kinda awesome...LOL... people come over and there are pumpkins and melons hanging from your trellis,lol... *sigh* I miss my old house... well, if things go my way I will have more than enough room to plant a ton of stuff soon enough and if I end up producing allot, like way more than i can use, then maybe I'll sell some stuff really cheap by mail to people here if they want it ^_^

Cool...mail order produce. I am actually planning next year to plant a pretty large (to me anyways) crop next year and do some farmers markets. It will be just the regular stuff like peppers, tomatoes, cukes, beans, carrots, wild raspberries, lambs quarter, stinging nettle, ect. But my plan is to grow lesser know or totally unknown varieties and they will of course be organic and heirloom. I want to do it not for profit, though it would be nice to make enough to support my gardening efforts, but to try and help get some community awareness out there about organic foods, growing at home, seed saving, eating raw, ect...I will have lots of printed literature for folks to take. I think if I can make it happen it will be a lot of fun.

Ooh, print up a little booklet! I'd buy one for a couple of bucks along with some of those crazy stripey tomatoes and some purple potatoes, chocolate mint, lemon basil, yellow raspberries, YUM!

yeah, that would be awesome, thats pretty much my goal to, I would love to run a large organic farm that made just enough to keep going, and then if there was any extra, donate it to something, or buy new equipment to help up production

I have some friends that operate a commercial farm that is mostly organic. There only income is working farmers markets in the Washington D.C. area. They do 3 different markets on Sat. and Sun. through the market season. They make as much as $14k from one market in one day. My fiancé worked for them some last summer and she worked the smaller of the three markets and she said it was nothing for them to make $6-8k per day at her market. That is pretty motivating to start an organic farm...lol

damn, I had no idea, personally I just want to be able to produce really awesome food that isnt covered in poison so people can be healthier, whether they are raw or not... but dang thats allot of money...im pretty sure the farmers market here in my town doesnt get that much though with every seller there combined... its rather small, and for some reason not many people go to it... probably cause they charge about the same as the store, sometimes more, and we are a pretty poor area...

The prices at the DC area markets are pretty insane but there is a lot of money down there too. These are really big markets too so there are lots of people. My friends down make that much profit from all that money cause each market has 4-6 people working at $100 each per day, they have several farm workers working 6 days a week, and as I understand it the farm they lease costs something like $10k a month. But they aren't hurting for cash either.

well if they make the minimum stated, 6 k a day, minutes the maximum of 6 people working at 100 a day, thats 5400 a day, they only have to have the max amount of people working, and make the minimum per day you listed, 2 days a month at one single farmers market to make the lease for the farm, although im sure there are a ton of other operational costs as well... but not bad for 2 days...lol...still have 3 other weekends to work in, another 6 days total, sounds like they would pull in a minimum of 40k a month rounded down...but thats also when they are selling, not counting the months they are just growing things and cant sell...

Yeah...they sell year round because they have some green houses as well but not nearly on the scale they do in the summer. They are limited to leafy stuff during the winter and just one market is open during the winter. But yeah...it is definitely a money maker. The owner, Eli, says he started on a 1/2 acre and at the age of 15. Just started growing some stuff and selling at a local market and I guess he got hooked. It has really paid off. I am trying to get in with him to start working some of the markets and perhaps learn a thing or two and maybe one day I can use my 1/2 acre to break in to the biz...lol

Her Nubster, you may find this link totally awesome then, Jodi shared this with me awhile ago, and its amazing... [urbanhomestead.org]