The Corn Post

It is 5 am on my birthday and I am blogging about corn. Life is good.

I planted corn in two places this year. One of the main sun garden's raised beds held a small patch of goldam bantam corn. I first planted it on 4/13. That initial planting didn't do much of anything. Only about 5 seeds germinated. I replanted this goldam bantam plot a couple weeks later. Goldam Bantam came highly recommended by Sarah's grandfather. It is an old heirloom variety that is only supposed to get 3 1/2 feet tall. I selected this shorter variety for the main garden so it wouldn't shade the potato crop that I was planting to the north. Well - it got plenty tall. I'd estimate it was at least 5 1/2 feet tall and it did shade those potatos. But the shade didn't do any damage to those red norlands because that crop was well on it's way to harvest when the corn reached mature size. Despite it's height and healthy foilage this corn was a disappointment. The ears were about 1/2 sized. Because they were so small I didn't harvest them in time. I kept thinking they needed "just one more week" to fill out. By the time I did harvest them (after a heavy storm knocked them all over), the corn was old and chewy - not sweet at all. My main garden plot of approximately 20 square feet yielded 8 pounds of migit sized, old, chewy corn. Remove the weight of the ears from this calculation and you likely have just a couple pounds of edible produce. Hardly worth the investment in garden space.

The other corn plot was planted at the edge of the two high wall and low wall gardens as sort of a visual and phyical fence. They did what I wanted them to do. They got tall and were really nice to look at from the street. Whenever I was down there watering or weeding I always took note of the looks that this plot would get from passersby. I noticed lots of second glances and little smiles. This variety of corn was a freebie from Shumway called early bird garden. I planted it three rows thick running about 25 feet long. The first 13 feet is full sun the last 12 feet is heavily shaded by a stone wall that edges the high wall garden. I made the same mistake with this plot that I did with the bantam. I never harvested it. When I finally got around to picking an ear it was old and wrinkly. This patch also didn't do real well.

Conclusion: Corn is beautiful to look at. It is wonderful in the compost pile. The stalks make fun swords for the kids and decorations at halloween. But it doesn't do much for my harvest. I think I will always try to find some space for it, but I certainly am done sacrificing main garden space for a corn row. I liked the way it fenced the wall gardens and I may make this approach an annual one. I need to plant later and harvest sooner - and lower my expectations.

Replacement, replacement planting

Remember my last post where I said I planted peas, chard, beans and spinach in the main sun garden? It must have been a dream. Nothing has come up. Well almost nothing. The swiss chard is doing well. The former onion, root, and pea beds have done next to nothing. So this morning (almost two weeks later) - I tried again planting the exact same stuff. Green arrow peas, early bird garden beans, and spinach. I also tossed a few rows of winter greens in the cold frame - kale and mustard greens. I used a spot that I had previously filled with kale seeds - again nothing. The only thing I can think about the poor germination of these late July plantings is the the weather must have just been too hot and dry for them to get going. Only 60 days left till first frost (oct 15), so not much time for planting left. This weekend will likely be it.

The harvest weight is up to 212 pounds. We had a 23 pound harvest on Monday. About half of the harvest was tomatoes and the rest was corn and beans. A big heavy storm did some major damage to our main corn planting. It knocked all the stalks over. We harvested it all and we are definately dissappointed in the result. The ears were about 1/2-3/4 sized, but despite their kid-sized ears, the kernals tasted chewy and old - not sweet at all. The variety was Goldam Bantam - recommended by Sarah's grandfather. We only yielded 8 pounds of corn - which if you exclude the unedible ear is likely more like 4 edible pounds. This same garden row planted in tomatoes, potatoes or beans would have yielded much, much more. I won't be doing corn in the main garden next year. I love the look of it, and the stalks do wonders for the compost pile, but it just takes up too much space and light for a very small - not so tasty yield. Farmers stands will get my corn business next year.

recent activity

Recent plantings:

• In the lower wall garden, I did some transplanting and re-seeding in the corn fence area. The vision here is a natural fence of 9 foot tall corn planted 3 rows thick and very tight. There is a pretty shady section of this fence where the low wall and the sun wall intersect. The seeds in this section did not take very well, so I thinned some seedlings from the other section and moved them over. I also re-seeded where things were sparse.
• Started 4 mini-rows of bush bean seeds in the sun garden. Three of the rows are planted with "early bird garden beans" from Shumway. The remaining row is planted with a bean called a slenderette.
• Started one large pot with carrots and leeks. Hoping for one leek in the center and carrots all around. The carrots that I have planted in the main garden have done poorly, but the ones in the pot have done very well. Today's pot planting was my attempt to not give up on garden carrots. Ditto for the beets below...
• Started on large pot of beets - mix of cylindra and detroit supreme

Recent Harvest Activity:

• Asparagus is done. I picked the last of the thick stalks about 3 days ago. I am letting the rest go to fern. Our first harvest was 4/1 and our last 5/19. Not bad for year two of a closely spaced bed.
• Spinach is going to seed. I did another one pound harvest of spinach recently. Most of the early succession plantings of spinach were starting to go to seed. Basically all the spinach planted in the cold frame or sq foot gardens were removed. The main spinach crop in the sun garden is still doing well. I now have 4 one gallon freezer bags full of spinach in the freezer.
  
• Pak Choi is done. It flowered super fast and the leaves never got very large. I was not impressed with pak choi, although it did add some variety to our salads and spring rolls. Perhaps a fall cold frame planting to harvest over the winter would be better for this.
• I harvested 4 tasty 5 inch long carrots from our January pot and one beet from the same. The beet could have used a few more weeks of growth, but was tasty.
  
• It hasn't rained in a while and the rain barrels are drying out.
  

Harvest weight is at 17.1 with 31 harvests

heavy planting day

According to my PA master gardener guide, May 10th is the last day of average frost in Pittsburgh. I checked the 5 day forecast and the predicted low next week is 38 degrees. So I figured what the heck - lets get the remaining stuff in the ground this weekend.

This morning I planted...

1. 3 squares of pickling cucumbers. These replaced some of my earliest cabbage and brocoli plantings which were killed by the critter.
2. 2 squares of zucchini. These replaced a leek, which never took and seed saver lettuce, which also never took.
3. 1 square of butternut squash - replaced a nibbled broccoli.
4. 1 square of replacement carrots. The original 16 seeds had only germinated 6 carrots, so I added replacement seeds. I planted these replacements pretty thick, thinking I'll thin later. The single seed approach for carrots has certainly not worked well, as germination is a real issue.
5. I finished the sun garden raised bed pea planting. I put in about 50 innoculated goliath edible podded snow peas.
6. Like the carrots, the golden bantam corn has not germinated well so far. I planted the rest of these seeds with many of them filling in blank spots in my original planting. I bet the germination rate on this 4/13 planting was less than 20%. I'm hoping the cold had something to do with that and today's planting comes in nice and thick. I ran out of seeds and was only able to plant about 2/3 of this raised bed in corn.
   
7. In the remaining space of the corn bed, I planted approx 17 Fin de Bagnol bush beans. These were from a seed savers seed exchange. Beans and Corn are supposed to do well together. I interplanted pole beans with my corn last year and it was really cute.
   
8. I also tossed in three mini rows of green onions
9. I completed the root crop raised bed. I put in 4 rows of beets. 2 rows of cylindra and two rows of early wonders. I didn't bother with the deep trench and screened compost approach that I used for the first two plantings. I just decided to plant traditional rows with pretty tight spacing for future thinning. It will be a nice experiment to see if the additional effort of the first two plantings results in better beets. I also reseeded some carrots due to the bad germination rate of prior plantings.

I found a couple interesting volunteers this morning. One I believe was an avocado core, which had sprouted in the sq foot garden. The other was a stick from a tree, which was growing and new tree. The kids were excited about the tree, so I replanted it in a pot.

Yesterday I removed the green manure from the high wall garden and added it to the green compost. I also added 5 large buckets of black gold compost to this garden and used my 8 inch fork to till it in. This will be a roma tomato garden. The tomatoes are hardening off outside now. I am becoming a big fan of green manure. The rye was about 3 feet tall when I tore it out. It was a fall planting that wintered over. The clover had formed a lush, 6 inch green carpet. This was a spring planting. They added about 10 inches of good nitrogen to the compost. It felt like I was completing the cycle as I would run alternating trips of green compost and black gold to and from this garden.

I also hilled up potatoes for the third time yesterday. They are just darn huge. I am basically out of available dirt to keep hilling them up.

The harvest is up to 9.25 pounds for the season. I also started tracking the number of harvests (basically trying to count our home grown veggie meals). We are up to 18 harvests for the year. We are grabbing lettuce, spinach, beet leaves, and onion and shallot tops multiple times a day now. The asparagus gives us 5 stalks a day as well. The Pok Choi is being harvested, but is disappointing as it flowered very quickly and it's leaves are sparse and small.

Tomatoes

I was sick all week and weekend too. But I did manage to do a little work in the yard...

1. Seeded approx 4 rows of lettuce - mesculan, romain, and buttercrunch
2. Planted 7 tomato seedlings in the sun garden - two grape, two silver fir, three early bird garden - these I am covering at night with cloches made from 1 gallon milk jugs sliced in half.
3. weeded and composted the sq foot garden #1. Added several seeds of various, wherever some were missing.
4. Seeded three rows of carrots in the sun garden (root plot)
5. Seeded three rows of corn in the lower wall garden
6. Seeded approx 1/3 sun garden plot of peas
7. Transplanted three silver fir tomato seedlings to pots - two hanging.

Easter chores

These photos are of the strawberry wall (see previous post). Yuck - I hate this section. The strawberries are on the low side of the hill, very top of the wall. In the plastic I planted pumpkins and mellons last year. I have the same plans this year. Like I said yesterday - a wonderful permanent solution awaits. I just haven't been inspired yet.

I planted some corn today. One of the sun garden rows is dedicated to corn. I have a variety called Golden Bantam. This variety is supposed to stay about 3-4 ft tall. I didn't want the 9 ft variety I planted last year in the sun garden rotation plan because it would likely shade another row or two, but I am hoping the golden bantam plays nice with the neighbors. I planted about 1/4 of the row (the east section - gets the most sun). I planted corn in the sun garden last year on 4/20 and it did well. It came up fast, so I needed to cover it a few chilly nights, but for the most part it was a nice garden success story. Not entirely sure I have enough goldam bantam seed to fill this row.

I planted three herbs that came in the mail from Shumway. I think they are chives and taragon. These are for Sarah's herb garden, but they had been sitting around the house for a couple of days, so I just stuck them in the ground in a temp location.

I potted up some tomatoes yesterday. I started these in flats a while back, and I have them scheduled for either pots or cold frames soon. I potted them in soil/compost mix to give them some nutrients and a little more room to grow. Their roots had pretty much filled out the six packs.

1. Early bird garden - started 2/27 - 3 seelings - final destination is likely in large pots
2. Shebyogan - started 3/9 - 5 seedlings - this variety is said to do well in hanging baskets, so I might try that
3. Silver fir - started 3/7 - 5 seedlings - These may get a row in the sun garden along with the cherry tomatoes that I have going. I may move them to the cold frame next.
   

The pepper seeds are now doing much better. 17 have emerged and one flat is still pretty fresh, so I expect at least that many more. I will have enough.

I did another 1/4 lb kale, beet leaf harvest for Easter dinner. We had a side dish of carrots, kale, beet leaves mixed with balsmic vinegar. Total 2009 havest to date 1 3/4 lbs.

I rowed on the water this morning. While we were rowing I noticed a rain barrel washed up on the shore. After the row I nabbed it and made another one. This now gives me five working barrels. I still need one more for myself, and a few more for friends who have put in orders.