growing corn

My corn weren't even as big a Lyndeelou"s corn!  So I guess we can call them Valley Barbie.  The liquid is cloudy so I hope they taste decent  I'll give SQ a try in the spring and hopefully in late July.  There were two corn on each stalk with a third one starting on one.  Sweetie felled 4 out of 12 stalks.

Audrey, you're right about cheap corn is this area.  Just want to try to say we ate HG corn.

I'm finishing making the plastic covers for each planted bed.  DH will install the connection to the greenhouse and then I can string the lights inside.  I have a smaller portable covered frame for the carrot and onion pots.  Sheets over the tall Spaghetti.  Best I can do since I don't have a REAL greenhouse.  Can't wait to see how we come out of the cold snap.  PS:  Will the snow pea plants freeze?

You might want to invest in a space blanket to top your small greenhouse off.  I bought mine at REI at Riverpark for around $17 I think.  They reflect 80% of the heat and would amplify your Christmas lights quite a bit.

As cold as this snap is going to be, is probably as cold as we'll have all winter long.  I'm just trying to get my garden past this 

What's with this rain??  I thought I had today to clean up for rain.  Dirt on the sidewalk.  Open bags of leaves.

I have a personal-size reflective survival blanket.  $2.  Would that help on my 4' x 4' GH?

Microwave steamed the 4 largest.  Gone in 60 seconds!

sanderson wrote:What's with this rain??  I thought I had today to clean up for rain.  Dirt on the sidewalk.  Open bags of leaves.

I have a personal-size reflective survival blanket.  $2.  Would that help on my 4' x 4' GH?

Yes, just be very careful with them as they are much more fragile and most often intended for a single use.  The more expensive ones are more like the thickness of a tarp though extremely light and can be used for a long time. 

Silver side toward the lights and they will trap the heat and reflect it back.

Thanks

The clue here is "snow" peas! They will be fine unless if gets down in the 20's for a long time.
Jo

Littlejo,  What a helpful clue.  I will be hopeful.

Audrey,  Out on business with husband today (dressed in street clothes, not jammies).  We drove by Riverpark and I saw REI.  Didn't know it was there.  Or Ruth Chris!  DH says I have to get out more often.

Yeah, I don't get out much either! The steaks were cooking when I was at REI, oh my goodness, that's a wonderful smell.

Hubby is bringing me 3 more space blankets home tonight. I have things just sort of rigged up right now with twist ties and alligator clips, but I'm going to sew the blankets together tomorrow so I'm not leaking warm air every which way.

Right now it's 34 degrees outside and 42 in my coverings inside the greenhouse. I may just decide to run a heater in there tonight because of the gaps in the covering.

Has anyone experience growing corn in a greenhouse? Only option up here (8500 feet)... Not had much luck, but never tried more than 3 or 4 stalks at a time.   Gonna step it up a notch and try filling a grow bed with corn in the new greenhouse we are building.
Any hints or suggestions if growing "indoors"? I will have several fans in the for circulation, and usually go organic with the fertilizer, compost or fish emulsion.

Corn in a greenhouse, never had a big enough greenhouse!
Corn is a heavy feeder, so lots of nitrogen.
Corn should grow fine, but may be a problem when it comes to pollination. It is usually wind pollinated, and not enough in a greenhouse. I read where someone collected the pollen in a shoebox, then went around to each ear and pollinated the silks manually. I think I read this on the forum. You could do a search in the left column. Or it could have been on the web? I remember but did not copy or pay much attention, since wind is not a problem here.
But, this may be an option in the future, due to lots of GMO, Agent Orange Corn, in the area.
Jo

littlejo wrote:Corn should grow fine, but may be a problem when it comes to pollination. It is usually wind pollinated, and not enough in a greenhouse. I read where someone collected the pollen in a shoebox, then went around to each ear and pollinated the silks manually.

When it comes to pollination time, maybe you could set up a few fans in the green house and make your own wind?

GG

yolos wrote:

sanderson wrote:My first corn have tassels with open "flowers" that are starting to shed pollen.  But, there are no ears or silks.  Should I call it good for the year and pull them up?  I will definitely grow them next spring.  I'm putting a few boxes to bed until March 1.

Thanks

This summer my tassels came early and pollen fell before the silks came on the ears.  No corn for me this last summer.  I grew silver queen too.

It is time to start thinking about planting corn here.  So, I have been on the web half the night trying to find an answer to my problem last summer.  My corn tasseled and dropped pollen before the silks appeared.  I never got an answer about why this occurred so I have been researching.  Here is a great article from Clemson University.

http://www.clemson.edu/extension/rowcrops/corn/guide/environmental_conditions.html

The answer seems to be moisture stress.  Quoting the article, "moisture stress during pollination is the most critical for reducing yield potential of corn.  Severe moisture stress will result in delayed silking and reduced pollination due to lack of viable pollen and reduced synchronization between silking and pollination.  Under severe stress, some plants will not form any silks, or silks will emerge after pollen production has ended."

So there is my answer.  Moisture stress.  But I thought I was watering fairly well with a soaker hose.  Apparently I was wrong.

The article also says that the earliest planting date is when the morning soil temperatures 2 inches deep is 55 degrees F.  I checked my soil temps midmorning and they were 60 degrees F.  So I will check early morning soil temps and maybe I can plant the corn this weekend.  Silver Queen and Silver King.

Yolos, thanks for posting the link.  My SQ is 2 feet tall (the ones that Cat didn't chew or pull up).

Pepper Alley with SQ and Dragon tongue

Sweetie with her 2 favorite snacks

Sanderson looking good!!.....I love all your containers!!!

This year Im making a little container garden area on our back patio   right now I have carrots, onions, lettuce and turnips.....just been filling up extra pots and containers with seeds/seedlings.....as our weather warms up Im hoping to add some cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers and what ever else we have extra of   

happy gardening
rose

I only have 74 Sq ft. in boxes so the pots are the only way to have more space. The bigger peppers were overwintered in the green house, so I will try to do the same this winter for all the peppers. Another good thing about pots is that I can move them as the sun shifts through the season. Everyone over to the house, everyone over to the fence, everyone . . .

Love it Sanderson!!

hugs
rose

Yolos - I planted 4 squares of Golden Bantam 4/1.  They're doing fine - about 3" tall right now.  Came thru the freeze fine.  Planting more today.

We tried corn for the first time last year and it failed so much.   It had some weird bug all over it and they kept falling over and never got more than 2 feet tall.   We are trying again this year and will do a florida weave to help support them, side dress and figure out what those bugs were.  I should have snapped a pic and posted here but to be completly honest I screamed and ran and hid from them the rest of the season!
 

I sowed 12 squares of a small variety called Quickie, which grew only about 5' tall but germination wasn't the best even with me shaking the stalks every day.  The corn itself was very short and fat but boy, it tasted absolutely delicious, even with missing kernels.  Not wasting the space this year.

Here's some of my squat ears.

The good thing about it was I did a 2 sisters with some purple-podded pole beans that did fine using the stalks as their trellis.  And the color showed up good against the green stalks for easier picking.

What methods have you all had good success with keeping the corn from blowing over? I have been pondering a Florida weave but worry that would inhibit pollination of the ears. I could just stretch a string trellis mesh about a foot up. Do you think that would be enough?

I plan to grow corn this summer in 16 square feet previously inhabited by strawberries.

The MM is very low, and I need to level the box before planting.

Given that I'm having severe back pain, would it be okay to top off with new MM, or should I amend with the usual compost blend?

Turan wrote:What methods have you all had good success with keeping the corn from blowing over? I have been pondering a Florida weave but worry that would inhibit pollination of the ears. I could just stretch a string trellis mesh about a foot up.  Do you think that would be enough?

I use the Florida Weave on my corn to keep it from blowing over.  A few pictures follow.  These are 3 x 8 beds.  I put 4 plants across the narrow side forming a short row and as the corn grows, I hill the dirt up around the stalks.  There are 8 rows spaced 1 foot apart.  I put a stake at each end of the bed and weave the string in and out of the stalks.  When I get to the end of the bed I wrap the string around the stake and go back weaving in and out until I get back to where I started.  That keeps it from blowing over in one direction but not the other direction.  It does help but then I put small bamboo stakes across the short side of the bed right next to the stalks.  Because I have a low fence around each bed I can just slip the bamboo stakes thru the fencing on each side of the bed.  As the corn grows taller, I move the string higher up on the stalk.  Sorry, not very well explained.  The pictures may help.




I have three beds that are each 3 x 8 feet.  I planted succession style so I am almost ready to harvest my first planting.  I used season extension methods and planting seeds indoors in small pots and transplanting outside after seedlings emerge (about 7 days).  I hope this works.  I am trying to hand pollinate so I cut off the tassels and dust the silks.  Only problem is, we have had frequent rains and wind so pollen is not behaving for me to successfully hand pollinate.  We shall see but at least none of the stalks fell over in the wind.


One year I did put a wooden trellis horizontally across a 4 x 8 bed and kept raising it as the corn stalks grew.  That worked well but I eventually took the trellis apart to use the wood for some other project.

Another year I did the Florida weave going down the long side of the bed then also did the Florida weave across the short side of the bed.  That worked well also but wasted too much string and time.

Thanks Yolo! I was hoping you would chime up. I tried to find a discussion we had once about this and trenching and hilling corn but failed.
I could easily do that perimeter fence and stick sticks through it. That seems the easiest idea yet. Thanks.

Turan wrote:Thanks Yolo! I was hoping you would chime up.  I tried to find a discussion we had once about this and trenching and hilling corn but failed.
I could easily do that perimeter fence and stick sticks through it.  That seems the easiest idea yet.  Thanks.

The discussion we had is probably in one of my Brooks, Ga yearly threads.  What I remember about that discussion was you giving me good advice about planting my rows across the short side of the bed so I could reach in with a hoe to hill them.  That is what I now do every year.  Thanks.