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Re: SqFt Corn -- questions

Square Foot Gardening List - http://www.flinet.com/~gallus/sqft.html

At 09:31 PM 8/9/99 -0400, you wrote:
>Square Foot Gardening List - http://www.flinet.com/~gallus/sqft.html
>
>All this talk about corn has been really interesting and helpful --
>
>I have some corn questions (problems) perhaps someone can help me with.
>
>We did not plant the corn in sq. ft., prepared beds -- we ran out of time
>and planted them late in rows. We've fertilized them a couple of times
>(forget with what, sorry, but tried to make it high nitrogen), and watered
>them a bit (perhaps not enough in the drought). Midway between planting and
>now (roughly), we added a straw mulch. The soil is rocky, a few as big as
>fist-sized, and we also didn't have time to de-rock it (to coin a phrase).
>The soil is also acidic and we added some lime not long before we planted.
>
>The corn never got very green -- it's not yellow, but it's not that luscious
>deep, dark, corn green. They didn't thrive in other ways as well. Some are
>very stunted, and probably none are exactly *full size* -- the ear barely a
>couple of inches off the ground on a couple. They're all different sizes,
>too. Some of the lower leaves are yellow and brown tinged, which I imagine
>is due to dry conditions and insufficient watering -- which may also have
>caused some of the smaller size -- ? 
>
>And now the racoons (we assume) have decimated them. We even put *peace
>offerings* of dried corn around the perimeter, but those rascally racoons
>sagely prefer the fresh green stuff, even though not fully ripe.
>
>Any thoughts anyone, including dealing with the racoons? I realize that with
>all the things we DIDN'T do, that we were asking for minimal productivity,
>but I'd sure appreciate any advice and insight so we can do better next
year. 
>
>BTW, the corn was two different varieties of hybrid, same varieties planted
>together. 
>
>Thanks,
>
>Patricia
>Zone 7b, West Georgia
>
Patricia, it makes a big difference whether your hybrid corn was sh or se.
If sh type, it would cross with any corn grown within 150 feet, and you'd
not have the sweet benefits of the corn you planted. If it was an se corn,
it wouldn't cross. Seed catalogs can tell you what varieties are sh and
which are se. 

Your remark about ears growing a couple of inches above the ground leads me
to suspect one of your varieties may be Precocious. That variety will even
set ears on suckers, and set kernels on the tassels. Weird. You've got to
make sure your varieties are compatible with one another. Run a search for
"growing corn" and find one that addresses conditions in your geographical
area. Also, read everything you can find at www.southernexposure.com about
corn. As for the raccoons, when the ears get large, fasten them to the
stalks with shipping tape (a wide Scotch tape). If the raccoons can't pick
them, they won't eat them. Good luck, Margaret L


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