Rain Grows Corn

This is last year's corn, picked a little late.
We got a wonderful rain (long, slow, and gentle) yesterday, followed by cooling temperatures and sunshine today. The corn is visibly taller than it was before the rain. It is growing pretty well!

My first year growing corn out there, I tried it in a few rows. It was too widely spaced, so pollination was poor. I had not had the soil tested (it was really acid at pH 5.6), so the stalks were weak and spindly. At acidic pH, even if you fertilize, the nutrients are simply not available to the plant. A $30 soil test includes a lot of valuable information, and is well worth the money. Last year I paid attention to my husband ( he is from Nebraska, the Land of Corn), and planted the corn in a 4x4 foot block, about one plant per square foot. I had also previously limed the soil. The stalks were stronger and pollination was MUCH better, though I was in Spain when the corn was ideally ripe.

This year I fertilized before planting, then side-dressed the plants with more fertilizer when they were about 6 inches high. No new lime this year. The stalks look stronger and even better. I'll be giving them the same weekly liquid fertilizer I give the tomatoes (sorry, it is Miracle Gro- the only kind I could find with low P, but high N and K, and some boron,which is what my soil needs), and some support via stakes at the corners of the beds and twine. I have 2 beds planted a few weeks apart, one of which has Missouri Wonder beans and zucchini interplanted. The other has some zucchini and some unknown volunteer squash-like plants. We'll see if they survive the borers to produce, and we'll see how interplanting affects yield So far my best-performing beds are the crowded ones, with a variety of plants to attract and repel different bugs. We'll see how it goes.