It might make it, but if it were in my garden i would leave it and start seeds again. Direct sow in a block, plant a grid of at least ten seeds, space them every 8 inches. You need more corn plants so you do get pollination. The tassel apears then the young ear with silks. Wind moves the pollen from the tassel to the silk. A group of corn plants polinate each other.
Do you have a few more growing?
I did sow more corn in that bed. They are sprouting!
My wonderful husband is gardening while I’m away, helping my Mom out of state. I love him for harvesting the corn and laying it to dry on our kitchen table. The GTS corn did pollinate really well and there is great color…BUT…we didnt taste any of the colored corn, except there are a few late ears still in the milk stage. Lots of seed for next season!
Harvested some of the GTS sweet corn. It is delicious. Plants were seeded the last week of March, and we harvested sweet corn on May 30th.
Wow, my corn stalks are still only about a foot high, and I planted mine in March, too! Maybe if I watered them more . . . ![]()
(But that’s not gonna happen, corn, so just get over it and start making me big ears already!
)
I think next year, I will likely go looking for extremely drought tolerant corn and give it the same amount of water and see if it does better. Most likely it will. ![]()
Mine corn stalks are all short, short, short. But we’ve had so much rain! Maybe its my soil.
Mine do look very healthy! They’re all lush and green-leafed and are growing well. Come to think of it, they’re growing packed very tightly together, both with the other corn plants and with lima beans and moschata squashes, so maybe they’re short because they’re crowded so tightly?
But if so, no regrets, because all the corn plants look lush and happy. The corn plants I grew last year looked miserable, even though they had the same amount of sunlight and water, and each had way more space to itself. Packing them in with a ton of other plants seems so much better! Most of my plants (of most species) seem to do way better when I pack them in tightly and let them be living mulch for each other. ![]()
I was out working in the garden today, and found 2 ears ready to harvest! Though both are very small, shorter than my hand from heel to finger tip. One is yellow kernels that are spread out with spaces, it didn’t pollinate well, I think, its a purchased package of seeds, I’m sure. The other is white and purple kernels, from GTS! Now, I let them dry on the cob, right? My plan is to replant what grows and produces, rather than eat any this year. Now to decide if I replant soon or wait for next spring. And I think I can get another harvest, it is only mid-June! Our average last frost is mid-Nov. These took 3 months to mature, but conditions are changing as the summer progresses. Oh, the options! So many!
I picked a few from my first planting last week (in the ground February 23, and probably sheltered too much by the celery for the first 2 months, besides cooler and wetter weather than normal in March and April), 4 ears yesterday, 5 ears today, expect 4 tomorrow and it continues for another week or so - advantages of diversity in the sweet corn seed. This planting was equal parts saved seed from last year’s GTS mix, Festivity, Golden Bantam Improved, Luther Hill, and Fisher’s Earliest. I’m leaving the bottom couple inches of some of the best cobs for next year’s seed (and to share), and add an inch of fresh compost and put the next round in between the plants left to mature.
2nd planting went in on April 30 and is tasseling.
Does anyone have sweet corn that is specifically resistant to corn earworm?
Is there any sweet corn that has the nitrogen fixing trait?
There were damp mornings when I thought this plant might be trying to make some nitrogen-fixing gel, but I’m probably imagining things. Regardless, the 1/4 of a cob I left for seed is drying now, it had particularly robust husk to keep the earworms out, and the post office returned your apricot pits for more postage.
I’ll hold your package a couple of weeks and add a little corn seed.
If you touched it and it was sticky like mucous, there’s a good probability it has the trait. I’m letting my nitrogen fixing flour corn landrace cross freely with my sweetcorn this year to try and transfer some of those characteristics. Next year I’ll be trialing a Chilean sweetcorn landrace that I have high hopes for exhibiting this as well.
Sweet painted hills has at least some air roots and nitrogen fixing mucus. Painted mountain is one of it’s progenitors and has the trait maybe little better, but not uniform. Suppose it’s not been important trait for selection. I don’t know how good the trait is compared to some of the more “original” varieties that have the trait. I haven’t sen it commonly go as high as in some grain corn landraces, but those varieties aren’t as high either.
My grain corn and popcorn are both doing well despite being entirely neglected… no weeding, no fertilizer, only rain water, all in newly built raised beds.
One of the outer stalks in two different clumps of grain corn were knocked over by something, and to keep them from getting critter-eaten, I pulled the ears. One was tiny, with deep DEEP purple-red husk, but poor pollination. The few kernels that did form had some great color, though, so I’m ok with that. Then there was this, rather small but lovely little ear… sure it’s not huge, but I’ll take it! Especially since the other plants are all still doing fine and I can see much larger healthy ones still growing.
I thought I noticed something odd on one of the popcorn ears… possibly tasseling at the top of the silks? I’ll have to get pictures tomorrow in better light (and fewer mosquitos) conditions!
Silks on tassels has a proper name, though I can’t remember it right off. Corn flowers differentiate between male (tassels) and female (silks) fairly late in their development, and tillers sometimes miss the step. It nearly always happens on a tiller, and there is likely some genetic predisposition in certain corns. The corn that forms is fine to eat, although it is very exposed to eat worms. I actually kind of like it because I can sample the flavor of a plant to decide if it’s worth saving without opening an ear.
First cob off the late march/early April sown sweetcorn
There’s really no reason for me to plant so early, I just wanted to see what would work.
This was actually some small tassel parts on the top of the silking-out cob! So far, they seem to have survived and have at least ok pollination from the size/feel of them, so I guess I’ll see what happens once they start to dry down a bit more.
I’ve pulled a few more from my grain corn that’ve been knocked/pulled/whatever down (probably local critters, but maybe just the wind? These were all on the outer edges of the clumps and on thinner stalks, a couple were even tillers, so it’s possible.) Anyway… The first few cobs had poor pollination, understandable with a diverse mix and being on the outside of the beds. I’m starting to get better ones now, and the rest of the crop seems to be filling out nicely!
My popcorn is another story… I’ve just pulled the first few, including what looks to be a Glass Gem offspring… I’m THRILLED with my “grow in clumps” results thus far, as these were the fastest to maturity and on the outside edges of the new bed. Other than watering at planting, the only assistance these received was a few morning shakes during the earliest pollen drop. I can’t wait to see what the rest yield!
From my April 30 planting:
This time, I did keep the rows sorted, and roughly ordered them from shortest to longest maturity. More than usual fell over in general. Also, pollination was less than spectacular, and mostly a bust for some of the later varieties. The most vigorous row was the saved seed from last year’s GTS grow-out (for those just joining, my then-3-year-old sorted the seed and made sure we planted all of the purple kernels, so it was pushed hard towards colorful corn). I have 3 solid ears on 2 plants that our neighbor missed while we were on vacation. They are being left whole to mature for seed. I added an inch of fresh compost and planted a desert-adapted flour corn this morning, working around those two plants.
I’m starting to get some good results from my grain corn and my popcorn beds.
The popcorn/glass gem/assorted mix is really starting to show its diversity…
Meanwhile, I have a new favorite for the grain corn.
This ear is basically perfect… excellent pollination (middle of the patch of clumps), great color/markings, and a very tight husk. Also no earworm damage, which I can’t say for any of the other grain or popcorn.
And for interest/oddities, I have this…
The wild thing is, this tassel-topped ear did not come from my popcorn, but from my grain corn bed. I can’t remember for sure, but I think this color is from the Slime Corn pack? I haven’t gotten any others in this color range yet.















