Second Corn Harvest

Things didn't go well for my recent corn crop. Oh, it started out well enough. The soil had been slightly improved, and the seed germination was good. I got the plants thinned on time. No diseases or pests showed up. The feral turkeys didn't discover them. Nor did the goat get loose and eat them. The weather was just fine up until tassel time, then things went downhill. Waaaay downhill. 

A bout of twisty winds knocked the plants around and flattened some. I managed to straighten up most of the plants just in time for pollen release. Then it started raining and the sun disappeared. Day after day, no sun. Day after day, light rain. I never actually saw any pollen, but somehow, some time, the plants managed to release some. 

Time went by. The weather never picked up to be "corn weather". It stayed wet and chilly. Two weeks ago the tassels went all brown, though they never dried. With the daily light rain, they became rotting, mushy brown blobs growing black mold. I carefully opened a few ears to see what was going on, and was sad to see that the end of the ears were all moldy. I could feel with my fingers that some ears were filling out here and there, so as soon as the leaves started browning on the outside of the ears, I pulled the plant. Why? They were rotting away! 

I kept the ears attached to the stalk, removing the upper stalk that was already rotting. I brought these to the house, setting them up under the roof where they would be protected from the drizzle and wet. I hoped to let the ears complete their maturation phase, metabolizing the nutrients from the stalk and cobs In order to mature the seeds. That was the plan, at least. 

The plan apparently worked. While the parts of the cobs that did get pollinated and produced seed were small and erratic, I did get seed for the next generation. Surly not the crop that I had been anticipating. But such is the life of a farmer. Nothing is guaranteed. 

(I'm holding my best ear of corn.)

This corn seed is my second generation. I started with 12 seeds planted in unimproved soil. From there I replanted what corn seeds I had gotten into slightly improved soil. Yes, the plants grew better though not great. Yes, they produced more and better cobs in spite of the lousy weather. But all is not lost because I now have even more corn seed for replanting and I will once again have another cycle of soil improvement before replanting. One of these days I will get to see my first great crop of corn! 

I ended up with two quarts of corn seed of varying quality. I'm surprised I got that much. I'll sort out the best looking seed for replanting my next crop, but hold onto the rest in case I have vacant land where I can plant the extra. This seed has come from the plants that were hardscrabble enough to survive poor soil and challenging growing conditions. About 10% of the plants failed, thus those that did produce are better suited for my conditions. Looks like I'm selecting for pretty tough plants. 

So the plan of having some corn crop to feed to the chickens this year did not come to fruition. But in a couple of weeks I will be ready to try again. 

Corn - Thinning & Weed Control

My corn growing experiment is coming along quite nicely. The plants are 10"-12" high now and in need of thinning. I've learned from previous garden failures that crowded plants do not yield very well, if at all. Since I had sown the corn seed fairly closely due to the fact that I wasn't sure if it's germination ability (I didn't want to take the time to test it because of the delay it would cause in getting the crop going), many plants are too close to one another. In the photo below, there are spots where the plants are clumped together, and every row is too closely spaced......

This corn patch is small, so it wasn't a big deal to go in and thin with wild abandon. Well, not quite that wild, but I did remove anything that was closer than 6" to its neighbor. The thinnings went to feed a treat to the rabbits. I made a point to leave the most healthy and robust looking plants while removing the small or thin ones. 

Once thinned (above) I lightly dressed the area with with a thin layer of chicken pen litter, placing it right atop the old grass clipping mulch. After this photo was taken, I added an inch of fresh grass clippings atop it all. 

I don't expect these stalks to get taller than 5'. So I think they can deal with about an average 10" spacing. Plus the soil in this spot has only been "improved" twice (that is, the previous crop and now this corn), so I'm not anticipating a dynamite corn crop. But surprisingly, the corn looks pretty good so far. 

Corn Crop - First Attempt

Corn is one of those crops considered to be difficult to grow well in my area. I'm not sure exactly why yet, but most people will tell me that's it's a problem crop. I'm just starting to experiment with corn, so I haven't discovered the problems yet. Just give me time and I'm sure I'll have a long list. 

I'd like to grow enough corn for my livestock to enjoy a bit every week, plus enough for hubby and I to have a couple ears each week too. That means that I'll be growing primarily sweet corn of some type, but perhaps also some field type corn. I use to see corn grown all the time when living back in NJ and I listened to plenty of farmers as they "talked corn", so I have some basic knowledge about this crop. Just don't have personal on hands experience. Nothing like giving it a try! 

Last spring I grew two varieties of heirloom sweet corn. In one case I started with 10 seeds, and the other there were 12 seeds. Both grew, but poorly. Where I planted them, the soil wasn't fertile enough. But I'm learning. I've since upgraded my soil for corn. Nowhere near perfect yet, but this time around the corn should be better. 

Above, I recently planted the corn seed I got from the 10 plants of Golden Bantam (2 of the original 12 seeds didn't sprout.) The seed was sown about every 3 inches, with the intent of thinning the row to every 10"-12". I'm figuring on selecting for the most robust seedlings. 

A week later the seedlings are bigger, so it's time to apply a light layer of mulch. I'm using chicken pen litter since it contains a good nitrogen source. 

Part on the left is lightly mulch. Right side is awaiting mulching. 

Mulching completed. 

Next week I'll start removing the weaker corn seedlings, giving more room for the stronger ones. 

As you may have noticed, I'm intercropping this corn. The variety is a short growing variety that won't interfere with the  surrounding plants, which includes one young apple tree, one young egg fruit tree, and two baby coffee trees. 

In a few weeks I'll update you on the corn progress plus let you know what I've learned about corn thus far.