[Worth1]

Originally Posted by feldon30

If you are serious about growing corn in a home garden...

• Skip the "three sisters" approach. Yes, it made sense for American Indians with plentiful garden space but little access to metal or wooden supports for beans to climb. Today, we have limited garden space while metal or wooden supports for beans are plentiful.

• Plant corn in tight clusters. On a corn plant, the tassels (male part) are over a foot taller than the silks (female part). Normally in a corn field, the pollen is carried by the wind 10+ feet away to adjoining rows of corn. In a home garden, if you plant in sparse rows, you will get empty ears with no kernels. What I did last year was to plant circles of 12-16 seeds in an 18" circle. The plants end up being about 3" apart from each other. I was also fastidious about using scissors to cut off tassels and shake the pollen onto the developing silks.

• Fertilize heavily when plants are knee-high and again when ears are forming. Don't look at corn as a typical vegetable that needs equal parts of N-P-K or even lower N. Corn is a GRASS and needs tremendous amounts of nitrogen fertilizer to produce well. I side dressed my plants twice with 46-0-0 and got great ears.

• Pick a variety with tight husks and/or use mineral oil and/or BT to keep earworms at bay. Corn earworm is a real problem and you have to keep them from entering the tops of the ears either through variety selection or various physical barriers.

Feldon
You new garden looks very nice.
Worth


I'm a huge fan of white corn. I did lots of research and found Ambrosia which is a 1990's hybrid that is reminiscent of Silver Queen but holds its sugar content for 3-4 days which is important to me. I got an ear per plant (most 6" or more, a few were as long as 9") and were absolutely delicious. I know Silver Queen is popular but, like most first generation sweet corn, shouldn't be picked until the pot of water is boiling. I also tried Bodacious and didn't find it nearly as good or productive.