Garden/Field Size in Relation to Landrace Crop Selection

General Discussions
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I estimate I am currently managing 800 square feet of total garden bed space. This doesn’t count my growing space for pumpkin or watermelon, which is much larger than that.

This amount of space is probably small in comparison to some of you who have fields to work with. I can probably grow 500 carrots at the same time if I wanted to. However, I have not even tried to grow corn, even though I want to. I believe for the space, corn would not provide the yield that would make it worthwhile for so much required space. It’s an opportunity cost problem. Likewise, I grew beans and peas a couple years ago. I was not happy with the yield in comparison to required space.

The ratio of corn cob size to total plant size is something I have never thought about before now. Does anybody know of a corn variety that has tiny plant size but huge corn cob size? I am looking for a skinny midget with a big head. I will trellis if necessary.

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Corn with squash is probably the best use for space. Squash uses a lot of space above ground that would compete with other squash if grown together planted close together. Corn on the other hand doesn’t use much space above ground unless you pack them really tight which is maybe not best use of space underground. Together they do well and don’t hinder each other. I think my last years set up worked quite well (which you can see in my own post). I still had them little too tight. Corn didn’t seem to be affected, but squash was a little bit. Probably because it would like more water and there were too many squash competing. There are corn that have short stalks, but I have only seen huge cobs in graincorn. Yukon chief sweetcorn that I had this year didn’t have big or even medium sized cobs, but ok for size of the plant. Plus they were super fast. Slightly bigger plants would be better for interplanting with squash.

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As I’m sure you know, and as suggested by Jesse, polycultures make best use of available space and of course the three sisters is a well-tested combination. Since you have areas for squash/watermelon why not throw in a few corn seeds and once they’re up stick a bean or two at their base. As long as you don’t go overboard I see no down side. At the very least you will be capturing more energy for the same use of space. This translates, in theory at least, to more carbon in the soil.

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My squash patch is unorthodox. I have about 40 spots in my yard from which I grow vining squash. Each spot is surrounded by grass and separated from each other by about 5 feet.

Since corn is wind pollenated, I am thinking it wouldn’t fit in well with this set up. I could maybe grow 2 to 3 corn plants together at each of the 40 spots. So maybe that would be 80 to 120 corn plants in the squash patch. And maybe those 2 to 3 corn plants at each spot could pollinate each other. Maybe a mix of about 5 to 6 varieties of 2 seeds each put around the squash would be appropriate. Then I could thin to the strongest 2 to 3 corn plants later. I have never grown corn so this is theoretical. I am thinking 3 corn plants together separated from other corn plants by at least 5 feet would be a low pollination problem.

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Another thing I would like to highlight here is the effect crop size has on landrace breeding speed.

If I have the space for growing 500 small type plants, I can make a lot of progress faster. All sorts of interesting genetic combinations could happen at rapid pace. However, if within that same space, I can only grow 50 large plants, I am going to experience a breeding development speed that is much slower than the other example.

I wish small plants excited me more. Unfortunately, most of my favorite crops are large vining types.

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It’s a misconseption that corn needs to be grown close together. My observation is that pollen rarely goes down next to plant even if it’s calm so having them next to each other isn’t really any use. What really matters is numbers; the more you have the more likely pollination. Edges might have some low pollination, but I haven’t seen that much when there are atleast mature 50 plants. Even 20-30 would do, but possibly some low pollination at the edges. I’m sure you could have rows separated by 5 feet and plants wouldn’t have to be that tight either. I have seen something like that in Charles Dowdings videos and what he has picked has been perceftly full. 50 mature plants would be plenty also genetically. Just do lot’s of thinning before maturity to make sure what get’s to maturity is locally adapted. Ofcourse if you had staple varieties first you wouldn’t thin that much and just collect whatever seed you get. With diverse seeds I have sown even something like 50 seeds for one plant just to make sure selection pressure is high. You might not need to sow that much if you have good area and can be little flexible what you leave. That’s why it might be better to have rows closer, but thin them so that there might be space between plants in the row.

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After considering your responses and my garden size, I am still leaning away from corn. I have a feeling if I dedicated 800 square feet for corn, I might end up with a couple five gallon buckets worth of corn that when shelled might only amount to a a few meals for a family of four.

I am currently in the process of looking at what grows in my state commercially to see if there is something I have overlooked for myself to grow. Mississippi ranks 3rd in the US for sweet potato production.

I may need to start looking for sweet potato seed sources.

But really, what I am most interested in is finding crops that I can breed which most or all of the plant is edible in addition to being small so I can plant many hundreds at once. Example: turnips. Turnips give me a huge payoff in these terms. The entire space the turnip requires is paid off by the entire turnip being eaten.

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Have you considered calories for square feet for the plant? Corn are in the top ten of the most calorie dense plants.

Other vantages to consider: they grow vertically, no need to trellis, can make multiple ears, you can use the stalks to make trellis with other plants, hand harvest is easy, harvest foot last longer.

Probably you can grow a couple in your pumpkin o melon patch and get away with it.

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I grow my squash in crop circles. If I plant corn around them, the aliens might come or I may make angry this guy:

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Despite my issues with it, you have inspired me to grow a little of it just for the experience.

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What about growing sweet sorghum? You could make syrup out of it, and eat the seeds.

I wanted to put that in with my squashes this year, but by the time I finally got the squash swales ready, I didn’t have growing time left to add sorghum. I hope I remember to try it out next year.

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Hehe, that is a good thing right?

I am deeply touched by that.
The same happens to me for some crops that I not found of. Some of them I consider “give away fruit” or seed producers, to gift to people that they really love. Or let them to be a trap crop, soil builders or to create compost.
More diversity can only be a good thing.

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I have never heard of sorghum except as a biomass accumulator. I am open to new things so I looked up what you are talking about. I found this video interesting:

I recently learned how bad fake corn syrup based waffle syrup is for health. I’ve also recently learned real maple syrup is expensive. It takes 40 gallons of sap to create one gallon of maple syrup. My kids love pancakes so I am interested in this. I don’t know if I am ready for fork out the money for a stalk processor yet though. I will think about it.

Woah, I just had a realization. If corn syrup is bad for health, then why isn’t sorghum syrup also bad for health? There is so much to learn. I bet pandas would get hooked on that stuff.

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And why isn’t maple syrup bad for health, and why isn’t sugarcane syrup (a.k.a. molasses) bad for health?

The answer is they are, in great quantities. They’re full of sugar. Eat them in moderation, like you would any candy. But there are lots of great nutrients in them, so do feel free to eat them, as long as you treat them as a treat to be used in small quantities, just like candy.

From what I’ve heard, corn syrup isn’t a problem per se; it’s high-fructose corn syrup that’s a problem, and that’s a problem specifically because too much fructose is bad for the liver. Of course, there may also be concerns about pesticide residues in GMO corn, or other nutritional issues I haven’t heard about.

My suspicion, if corn syrup itself is pointed to as the culprit, is that the problem amounts to “way too much of your diet is based on this one species.” That’s often a problem, because most species have too much of some nutrients and too little of others. My suspicion is that maple syrup (the real thing) and sorghum syrup are both better than sugarcane syrup or corn syrup, if only because both represent a different species being eaten.

Sorghum syrup doesn’t taste exactly like sugarcane syrup or maple syrup; it has its own flavor. But it’s the same type of flavor. It goes great on pancakes, and on anything else you would normally eat maple syrup with. You can buy a bottle of it on Amazon to taste out and see if you and your family like it, if you want to.

I haven’t tried this yet, but it seems worth trying. Sugarcane can be eaten raw, kind of like enjoying a fresh fruit, instead of pressing it for syrup. Maybe sweet sorghum stalks can be, too! If so, that might make a yummy fall treat, and it would be something you could try if you don’t want to press them for syrup.

P.S. By the way, you can tap other tree species for syrup! I hear walnut trees make amazing syrup, and so do a lot of other nut trees. Do you have some of those, and if so, are you interested in doing all the work to boil down syrup?

You can also turn any fruit juice into a syrup by boiling it down. I do that with elderberries every year.

P.P.S. You can make fake maple syrup for cheap with a sweetener of your own choice (including something like stevia, which you could grow). Fake maple syrup is made from the herb fenugreek, which tastes like maple, except with a bitter aftertaste. So another option to replace fake maple syrup would be to plant a bunch of fenugreek and make it yourself, with ingredients you approve of.

FYI, In large quantities, fenugreek is not safe for pregnancy, but it’s amazing for nursing. It enhances milk supply to an impressive extent. So be aware of that, in case either of those circumstances may be relevant to your family.

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If i’d have a small garden and a family to feed and the ambition to breed landraces, i’d go for green veggies. Rice/potatos beans and greens keeps everybody healthy and is not very expensive.
These would do in my climate. A four season lettuce everywhere, selfseeding the biggest, where it likes it add génétic diversity. Onions and leeks of all sorts. Garlic is not landracey but good for thé wallet. There is much fun to be had with Brassicas. Swiss chard if the family likes it. Yummy with eggs. Rocket salade, beets in all colors need landracing. And a plethora of annual and forever médicinal and kitchen herbs to keep insects confused and the family away from pharmacutics.

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Actually, here’s an unorthodox thought. Have you tried growing tomatoes in a polyculture with squashes? I did that last year, and the bush zucchini next to my Roma tomato held the tomato vines upright, so it needed no support. Since the tomato leaves are small and the squash leaves are big, the tomato poked up through the squash, and neither shaded the other out. It seems like something worth doing in future, to me.

I’m thinking winter squashes with determinate tomatoes (so you could harvest everything all at once) and summer squashes with interdeterminate tomatoes (since you’d be harvesting several times a week anyway) would make sense.

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That is a thought I would be interested in trying. I have maybe 1.5g of Big Hill seed from a sale I took advantage of this year. I think I will plant it around my Moschata next spring and thin to the strongest 2 or 3 plants at each crop circle.

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Very delayed reply here, but i think you are vastly overestimating how much space you need for corn and underestimating it’s production.

A few years ago I grew sweet corn in a teeny three sisters patch that took up some 36-50 sq. ft of my then 100 sq. ft community garden plot. That was the best yield/sq. ft I’ve ever gotten out of a garden.

If I recall, I planted just under 50 corn spaced around 8 inches apart in a 6ft x 6ft grid, leaving a slightly larger open area in the middle where I planted a winter squash. I also planted 2 beans near each corn cob. I did go out and shake each corn cob about at pollination time, but otherwise it was super low maintenance. My squash struggled a little - I think for reasons unrelated to the corn, and only produced a couple of smallish squashes. However, each corn plant produced 2-3 decent sized, fully filled cobs for a total of just over 100 corn cobs. My husband and I had 3+ weeks of fresh corn with dinner several times per week, including at least two family BBQs with a half dozen or more guests. We also had more green beans and runner beans we knew what to do with that year.

This year I have a much larger garden (feels huge to me, but about what you’re describing) - about 800-1000 sq. ft for veggies, plus another 400 sq. ft or so of perennial and shrub beds including fruit, berries, herbs and tea plants alongside stuff for the pollinators. Im planning on doing a larger scale version of my three sisters planting - about 150 sq. ft split between 4 varieties of sweet corn in hills/patches as the previous one, with staggered season lengths/planting times. This way I can spread our fresh eating season over 7 weeks, and we’ll have enough for the freezer, too.

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