Monday, July 15, 2019

We Planted Corn


planting sweet corn late in the season

We snuck in some late season corn planting!

As I mentioned last week, a lot of things are trial & error around here.

After dragging our feet for far too long this season, we finally decided to plant corn at the end of June…

June 30th to be exact.

Here’s the problem with that:

In our area, corn is usually planted in late May/early June to ensure the whole 'knee high by the fourth of July’ saying.  I also came across this article, which says that knee high corn by July 4th is still too short!  Either way, I’ll say that somewhat tall cornstalks by early July is where it’s at…
So planting corn on June 30th does not allow anywhere near enough time to produce a tall corn stalk by July 4th!

But we did it anyway.
planting sweet corn late in the season
planting sweet corn late in the season

We’re currently in the middle of a huge regrading project with our land.  We have this huge, empty dirt area that we haven't done anything with.  We don’t want to plant grass there yet because we’re still leveling it off.  I wanted the land to be somewhat useful, so I mapped out a couple areas where we could plant corn.

Our neighbor then came over with his rototiller & tilled up the land for us.  It was quite the job because the dirt over there is tough.  It’s fill dirt.  Nothing special.  No topsoil is over there at all.
Needless to say, it’s not the perfect ground for corn to grow.

But we did it anyway.

Besides, it was already June 30th.  I would put some seeds in the ground & see what happened.

Now, about the seeds…
planting sweet corn late in the season
planting sweet corn late in the season

I had a couple of seed packets that I picked up this year.  I also had several seed varieties that I picked up in years past.  I’m not a huge fan of using outdated seeds because you never know if they’re going to produce or not.

After planting one of the new seed packets, I decided to give the old seeds a try.

It was already June 30th, the soil was terrible, so what was the worst that could happen?  Most likely nothing would happen at all. If we were lucky, we'd get a couple of corn stalks & an ear of corn or two.

So then something happened…

Corn started popping up from out of the ground.

Lots of it.

All of it.
planting sweet corn late in the season

planting sweet corn late in the season

I think every seed I planted started coming up.It’s nowhere near knee high or anything, but it’s there!

We still have a long time to go before it’s time for harvesting, but at least it’s off to a great start!

In one area, I planted a fast yielding corn.  It will be done in about 60 days or so.

In the other area, I planted corn that will come up in about 85 days.

Right now, they’re about the same height, so I have no idea what will happen.  It’s a race to the finish!

So apparently, we’re crop farmers now?!  Haha!
planting sweet corn late in the season


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