Can I plant corn??

[jinman]

Cukes. Lordy but we have Cukes. Brought a bag into work to give away. We tried some people we know to see if they wanted them but they have a garden and they can't give away theirs fast enough. Going to try to pickle some cukes and Okra over the holiday.

Dan, your cukes sound like they are producing like ours did last year. I swear that if we wanted small cukes for pickles, we had to pick twice per day. They grow so fast. We must have given away at least 5 bushels from our 12 hills of cukes last year. Every day we picked half a bushel or more.

 

[dmccarty]

Ended up working a full day yesterday and "canning" the cuke pickles last night. Had to try some after the cukes had been in the pickle for about 24 hours. VERY VERY good. Split the batch so that 2/3 are just "sweet" while the other 1/3 I added garlic and red pepper flakes. Very Very good. Hope they taste this good after being processed.

Did not get a chance to pickle the Okra since I had to work. But we did batter up the Okra for frying. Made a big batch for dinner. Its all we had to eat. After taking the fried Okra out of the oil, I let it drain, and add salt/pepper. It don't drain long before its eaten.

Have at least three more dinners of Okra ready to go.

I'm going to pickle the Okra the same as I did with the cukes. The pickle was on the back of the lime can. Basically a 1 to 1 ratio of vinager and sugar with a little salt. With the Okra I'll make some just the pickle then add red pepper and garlic to another batch. If we get hot peppers from the garden I'll add those in the late summer batches.

The green beans are moving along. I think we will just blanch and freeze them. Not sure if we would like them if we "canned" them. Wish them tomatoes would hurry up. Lots of Basil waiting for them....

Later,
Dan

 

[dmccarty]

Dan, your cukes sound like they are producing like ours did last year. I swear that if we wanted small cukes for pickles, we had to pick twice per day. They grow so fast. We must have given away at least 5 bushels from our 12 hills of cukes last year. Every day we picked half a bushel or more.

I think we would have to pick twice a day as well. Not only do we have the four or so cukes I planted but a volunteer showed up as well as a volunteer Cantalope. I planted about 4 Cantalopes last year. This year we have 6-8 plus the volunteer. The volunteer already has a fruit that we should pick in a day or so. I think I see a another volunteer outside the garden as well. Not sure if it is Cuke or Cantalope.

We have had so much rain recently that this morning I noticed our back yard, which is full of mulch, no grass, has zilions of fine little mushrooms. Never seen these before. Very small and dainty. All over the place.

Later,
Dan

 

[N80]

We went down to our cabin this weekend. Saturday morning we got up and picked corn. Got 88 ears. We gave some of those away and ate some on the cob. The rest, about 4 dozen ears, we cut off the cob, cooked and froze. That gave about 4 quarts. Man it takes a lot of corn to get a few quarts.

This afternoon we picked another 120 ears. We made the rounds today giving some of it to friends and family.

Most of the ears a pretty large and well filled out but a number of them are quite small, but still ripe and ready to pick.

We shucked the rest and my wife and I will take it to our jobs tomorrow and give it to anyone who wants it.

So far we've gotten a total of around 300 ears off of 200 plants (5 rows of 40). And there are still lots more ears left that should be ready in the next 2-3 days. We got another good rain this afternoon.

We've got 3 or 4 more ears with the smut. Probably half of the ears have worms but mostly just at the tips. I dusted heavily with Sevin, but it rained right after I did and it kind of clumped up and may not have worked as well. But still, no serious worm damage.

And still no deer or coon damage. Deer tracks IN the corn patch! Not a single ear eaten. I just don't get it but hey, I'll take it.

In any case, its been loads of fun and these last ears have just been delicious. I can't wait to do it again next year. Was thinking about planting a lot more, but as much as we've gotten out of this 15' x 40' patch, I'm not sure I need to plant more. Of course the deer are bound to find it so next year I may need to plant more since I'll be 'sharing' more of it with them.

 

[ray66v]

I am still waiting, (3 more weeks?), for any gratification from my corn field.

With a haul like that, are you rethinking buying that corn planter now?

Having a 3rd or 4th ear as a "runt" on some stalks, is not uncommon. Think of it as an underachiever.

The dust is effective against the worms, if properly applied, you might be right about the rain.

When the stalks all dry out real well, I tie them together standing upright, Pour on some diesel, and light it up.

The chances are all your threats will increase in intensity each season, if you plant the same area. So, be ready for a bigger fight next year.

 

[jinman]

Nuthin' is better than success unless it's eating your success.

 

[N80]

With a haul like that, are you rethinking buying that corn planter now?

Yes. Looks like we did pretty well with just a stick.

Having a 3rd or 4th ear as a "runt" on some stalks, is not uncommon. Think of it as an underachiever.

We also noticed little 'sucker' ears growing off the sides of some ripe ears. They came off with the ripe ear when we pulled it. Had little tiny unripe ears inside.

When the stalks all dry out real well, I tie them together standing upright, Pour on some diesel, and light it up.

Will do.

The chances are all your threats will increase in intensity each season, if you plant the same area. So, be ready for a bigger fight next year.

That's why I'm still hedging my bets for next year and will probably plant a good bit more. I may also try to do some research and find out good varieties for early, mid and late season planting.

 

[dmccarty]

We got picked some corn yesterday. Just nibbled a few kernels. I cut the kernals off of 6-8 ears and put it in the fridge. Already cut up a good 8-10 cups of okra and I was working until 8:30ish putting up another batch of 13+ pints of pickles.

While working on the pickles the wifey walks in from the garden with the corn, more okra, and a plastic grocery bag full of cukes! Enough for another 12 pints of pickles.

We have enough pickles to eat 2 pints a month for the next year. I think we have enough. I brought the Bag O Cukes to work and they were gone in an hour. I wonder if that will happen if I bring in a Bag O Cukes every week for the rest of the season?

The green beans are ready to pick and process. We wll have to pick the beans and corn this week. Okra as always. Finally picked a cantalope which I did not have time to try. Last years was very very good.

Garden is fun but sure is a lot of processing work. Them pickles are good though.

Later,
Dan

 

[charlz]

Corn ear worms are now supposed to have some resistance to the Carbamate family... which includes Sevin.

Has anyone tried spraying a BT product? I am going to have to do something for my later planting of corn. My early planting usually misses the corn ear worms but it didn't do so good with the cool spring so I also made a later planting.

I just wanted to report back on this. I sprayed BT on my later crop of corn when the silks first appeared. Only a few hundred plants so I walked up and down the rows and sprayed the 'ear area' of the plants. Repeated every 7-10 days. I did not have one single corn ear worm in that planting. Seemed to be less earwigs as well.

This was a new patch in new ground so that may have also had something to do with it. Did not leave a 'control patch' to get a comparison so take it with a grain of salt

 

[ray66v]

This was a new patch in new ground so that may have also had something to do with it.

That is a safe assumption.

I used Sevin again this year. Applied on initial appearance of silks, reapplied as necessary due to heavy rain, no worms. I do use a hand cranked duster that is pretty effective.

My 2008 season recap:

I had corn every 2 or 3 days for about 4 weeks.

Yield was down due to poor weather, especially during the first 1/2 of my harvest. 2nd half yield was ok.

Quality was good all season.

Smut was almost nonexistent this year, the least I've ever had.

Not that I'm an environmentalist, but, I used a (borrowed) chipper on the stalks this year, rather than burning them. It worked well.

Ate a lot, fried a lot (freezer is full), gave some away.

All and all it was a pretty good year.

I also grew a Crimson Sweet Water Mellon, that was to die for.