The Corn Goes In

It is still a week too early, but the bride wanted to get the corn in the ground. I am not accustomed to this sort of unbridled compulsion from her. Well, she is the Chef des Jardins, and as the holder of that office has the last word with all things veg. Thus, it was in the ground with them.

You have seen a few weeks ago how we made the corn bed ready with cleaning, compost and manure.


Now that the corn plants are mostly planting size, we are taking a calculated risk with the weather. The above pic was taken ~13 april 2016. ( One would like that ground to rest and regroup for 1-1½ months ideally...so we are a bit shy of that. Here goes then:

First thing that I did was to pull a furrow.


Then I used a tulip bulb planter to make a hole in the bottom of the furrow.


I planted then one furrow and one hole at the time...as opposed to first digging all the furrows and making all the holes at once. That makes for much harder work.


I dug the hole, lowered the plantlet down, and water was then poured around the outside of the hole, washing loose dirt in and filling the hole around the roots. I then raked a bit more soil from the sides and mashed it down good, then a tad more dirt.

This is how it looked in the end--a nice, square block for even pollination. There were some tiny plants left over and so we stuck those in a row at the back (on the pic front. they are truly tiny) instead of throwing them away. Perhaps they will catch-up and perhaps not...but either way, I just hate throwing away plants.


You can see that the broadies are already blooming and the spuds are coming up in their trenches over to the left.

I am pleased with this work.

 

It looks wonderful, you have good reason to be pleased. The unplanted corn bed looks very tempting. I could bring my duvet and sleep there.

 

Well again, Sjoerd, I am learning from you. I have never heard of anyone I know starting corn in pots and transplanting. In fact I just checked my corn seed packet and it said to direct seed. It's too late to try it this year but, as my growing season is so short, I'm going to give it a try next year (if this old mind remembers )!

 

Thanks so much, DRU--I believe that you would too. hahaha. I remember you once did lay down in my garden. Do you remember that? Dear, oh dear, oh dear. Well, I can tell you that the corn bed was just as soft and loose as a feather bed. And when it came time to pull those furrows through, it was effortless. That's the way I like to work.

2OF--I am not surprised that you have never heard of anyone starting corn like I do; because practically everywhere you read, you will see in no uncertain terms to NOT germinate and plant corn in this way. I understand the reasoning for this, because of the physiological nature of the plant.
Having said that, I know that in gardening, sometimes boundaries can be "grey" and uncertain. I'm the sort of bloke that will challenge those sorts of rules if I think that alternatives are possible...alternatives that make sense and will work for me and my schedule.
You know by now that I do several things in a non-usual way... but not just for the sake of being different; rather with thought, calculation and reasoning behind my trials. If they work, then I keep and use a procedure, and if they don't--then I will not.
You know, I don't use just any pot for germinating corn--I use root trainers. I do this for two reasons: 1)--so that I can get long and well developed root balls. 2)--and with root trainers I disturb the roots less when transplanting.
These are the most common reasons that experts advise against doing what I do. And it is true that corn especially, can react adversely if the roots do not have adequate room for their development and if they are traumatised during transplantation.
I shall stop waffling-on now.

EILEEN--You are so nice to say those things. I am glad that you like the way things are looking on the lottie. Stuff is finally beginning to happen now.

 

Of course we direct seed corn here. But there have been years that we seeded corn up to two weeks apart and still,,it all comes off at the same time. So don`t worry about your tiny ones,,they usually catch up quickly.

 

MART--my fingers are crossed. Waste not, want not as they say. When I went to give them water yesterday, I could already see that the little plantlets were looking well. ...well, all except one--I guess that it didn't get the message that it was now free.

I always plant the runts with other types of plants...but have never had runts with corn--they either germinated on time or did not. We shall see how it progresses. Now I wish that I had planted them on the south side of the patch instead of the north side. They have a bit of an exposure handicap in this configuration.
Thanks for the moral support, miss.

 

Mart got me thinking about corn so I had to check yours out. Very nice indeed!

 

Thanks meid.
It will be a couple of weeks before the plants recover from the trauma of the transplant...but I expect them to go ahead and do well. The only thing to hinder this would be animals.

 

Nice work Sjoerd, I am hoping to get mine in next weekend, I need to finish clearing the patch..