Sunny days

Possibly the cheeriest flower around, sunflowers are incredibly easy to grow in California. You can find entire sunny fields of them south of Davis and gobs of cut flowers at local markets. They're great for bees, and the seeds are higher in vitamin E and folate than most other nuts and seeds. The kernels are crunchtastic in salads, cookies, muffins and snack mixes. You can go old-timey baseball watchin' with in-shell kernels, or go the easy route and buy them shelled. And if you happen to save a dried flower head and scatter the seeds about your yard, you'll have your own flowers next summer.