It looks like some of the plants have many corn cobs on each plant. More than the usual 2-3. The purple corn tassels looks like it matches and goes with the plant with the purple cobs.
Some sort of viney weed is growing up the corn. We are going to de-weed the garden, and plant Puerto Rican black beans into the corn area. We also want to plant the rooted sweet potatoes slips, and extra poblano/Ancho peppers and Mirasol/guajillo peppers into various parts of the garden in preparation of the summer garden.
This visit was short, it was too hot and humid for our boys. We were able to pull some weeds amongst the two rows and checked out the progress of our projects.
I didn’t see this during last visit, but we have a nitrogen fixing corn plant with 5+ corn cobs.
They all look to be different sizes, and are still filling out. We hope that this particular plant survives to produce seed. 5+ is the most cobs of corn on a single plant that we ever produced.
The Seminole Pumpkin plant has died. It looked like it was doing well too during our last visit.
We planted a lot of Puerto Rican black beans under our corn plants, in hopes that they can climb up the giant corn stalks and planted lots of Arajuna f2 pumpkin seeds everywhere there was open space.
Note to self: We haven’t watered the garden in a long time. The last time that we had watered anything was probably the end of April or start of May, it has been raining consistently, a couple or few days every week.
Photo of the progress of the garden from the front, very weedy. Every time we visit it is rainy and muggy, with lots of mosquitoes. It got so bad that I forgot to take a photo of the garden from the back view.
Our interesting nitrogen fixing flour corn plant specimen. It looks like there are actually 7 coins of corn on this one plant. One cob looks full sized while the others are smaller, and not regular sized.
Some of our pumpkin plants have sprouted, I hope that these can survive and do better than that lone Seminole pumpkin seedling that died last visit.
We soaked 50+ seeds of what could be “Arajuna” f2 pumpkin seeds and planted them in all of the open sunny spots of our two rows of garden space. It is going to be rainy from this point on until the 8th of July.
A photo of a pest frequenting the tomatillo plants, there are so many of them out here. They look like leptoglossus sp. And might be the ones that are leaving indentations all over the Tomatillo fruits.
Before we left Dani planted out a lot of our rooted “Tainung 64” sweet potato slips into the garden.
Next visit we will hopefully do we get everything and take more photos of the progress in the garden.
07/07/25:
We weren’t able to visit the garden over the weekend. It was very rainy and our eldest baby boy was sick. My husband instead visited the garden in my place, and took these pictures.
Dani picked a corn cob from one of the weaker looking purple corn plants. This particular cob had two underdeveloped side cobs growing from the main corn cob. Is this a desired trait? Are these suckers? We are going to allow this cob to dry further inside our apartment.
The raised bed with the tomatillo plants have all been cut down because of it being late into this growing season. Also because a lot of the fruits falling and rotting from the plants, and attracting a lot of pests.
Dani was also able to weed here and there, and pulled up the harvest of yellow onions because it was difficult to deweed all of the grass in the area without pulling up onions as well.
Next visit to the garden we are going to replant the yellow onion bulbs and hope that they grow a larger size.
I think I found an article about the phenomenon of a corn plant producing a cluster of many cobs on a corn plant, also known as "bouquet ears:
This looks similar to what is happening to some of our corn plants. Does anyone know if this is what is happening to our nitrogen fixing corn plants? Any insight is appreciated.
There are so many weeds. I was able to pull up the weeds from the first row, were the row of corn is at all the way to the other end with the tomatoes. But didn’t take any photos of it. Hopefully, next time we will weed some more.
We picked some cobs that looked like they were ready for harvesting. As we didn’t want the bugs, or the cobs to get moldy. We would rather them dry to instead dry inside our apartment. I am considering these to be early maturing.
There are many cops still out there that are still green in color. We are waiting for the color to change before we pick them. Some of the taller corn plants put out their fruit late, and are still filling out.
Our early maturing ears of corn, we have braided these and put them aside to dry. So far there are three colors that we noticed that our corn comes in three main colors. Purple, this orangey color and white.
I didn’t see any pumpkins sprouts that survived. We had a handful of Puerto Rican black bean (vigna sp.) sprouts that have survived and hopefully will grow up our nitrogen fixing corn.
Next time I will plant the pumpkin seeds and Puerto Rican black beans earlier for our Three sisters Garden. This year it was partly unsuccessful, because I planted the Puerto Rican black beans and pumpkin seeds too late.
Dark purple colored corn cobs? Is that how you describe this color? Dani noticed that the stalks of this type are not as strong as the other types present in this line. I love the color. Would make nicely colored corn tortillas.
TThe white corn cob all the way in the back is warped looking. It’s husk also look very similar, very whirled and warped. We do not know what that’s all about.
Irregular round rusty orange-red corn cobs, rows of this type is irregular or non-straight. I checked online, and it says that this might be a “sign of pollination issues or environmental stress during kernel development.”
We also found some pests on the corn cobs as we shucked them.
Some sort of caterpillars that were eating the corn kernals. I put them inside a jar with the affected corn kernals to see what kind of moth that they turn out to be. I want to identify the moth.
At the end, we set aside all of the crooked and mini tiller-sucker corn cobs that are not full size for making masa, and are drying the rest of the cobs for a seed increase.
Our nitrogen-fixing corn line is showing a range of maturity dates, with cobs ripening at different times throughout the season.
We’ve already completed the early and mid-season harvests. The early maturing ears, picked on July 7, 2025, displayed a beautiful variety of colors, including white (with hints of yellow and lavender), dark-vibrant purple, and an orange-rusty red.
Our mid-maturing corn was harvested on July 19, 2025.
We have approximately 10 remaining ears of corn on the plants, which we anticipate harvesting this weekend. These will be considered our late-producing ears.
Seed Storage Challenge:
Unfortunately, an attempt to prepare the corn cobs intended for seed increase ran into a problem. When we were processing the cobs, we notice issued with pests. I tried freezing the ears to eliminate any potential pest eggs, but upon returning them to room temperature, they developed a white mold.
Does anyone have any thoughts on alternative methods for pest control or seed storage that we could explore?
Do you know what caused the damage? Most insect larvae will not lay eggs, so depending on what caused the damage you shouldn’t have to worry about eggs.
Also, we have the kernals from all of the tiller/sucker, and crooked ears of corn that never went into the freezer. These are going to be kept as an emergency seed backup.
As a precaution all of our corn seeds were soaked in hydrogen peroxide for 15 minutes. They all look good now, and have completely dried.
Today we are going to check up on the remaining 10 ears of corn that are still out there. No freezer this time!
Just a guess, that the moldy ears went into the freezer a little damp, while the others were completely dry.
When I have to do small amounts of seed that have signs of pests (usually peas) I put them in a sealable container with an open jar of rubbing alcohol. It won’t take care of eggs, but anything already hatched is toast.
Best looking ear of corn, it’s has a little bit of huitlacoche, corn smut, towards the tip there. I got all excited, and ended up losing that single piece. The rest of the corn, with the little of the corn kernels that it has were unaffected by the fungus.
Various pest and pest damage in the garden. The ear of corn of the top was exposed and almost completely eaten, by a squirrel most likely. Must of been delicious!
Daniel thinks that it was the squirrel’s doing. There are a lot in this area. You can see their damage days after we planted the soaked kernels out. We just haven’t caught them yet.
The photo on the bottom is of the obscure bird grasshopper (Schistocerca obscura). It was observed eating the foliage of one of our corn plants. It’s important to note that these can appear and cause damage to corn plants at this time of the year.
Dried up corn stalk, spent. I think that this is the plant that produced some of the dark purple colored kernals.
The Park’s Whopper Improved and Cherokee Purple tomato plants have died maybe 2 or 3 visits ago? They lasted for a long time as transplants. The plenty got large in size, but never flowered, of course didn’t set fruit in the heat of the summer. One thing though, they lasted longer than the tomato plants planted by the other gardeners here in UF Compost Cooperative and Gardens. Those tomato plants turned a splotchy brown and withered away early on.
The last of our mature corn ears are now set out to dry. We were surprised to find that this final batch included some of the longest ears from our crop, particularly the tri-colored variety with its unique white, yellow, and lavender kernels.
These ears were late-bearing. Their late pollination coincided with the peak of summer, where daily temperatures were consistently in the high 90s here in Gainesville, FL in late-July, often accompanied by excessive heat warnings.
As a result, the heat likely prevented adequate pollination, which explains why there are fewer kernels on each cob.
We didn’t get any other corns that had mostly lavender colored kernels.
The longest corn from the entire project, about 12 and 3/4 inches. It turned out to be on of the tri-colored corn with white kernals, and a little of yellow and lavender.
The kernels off of these two corns are also larger in size than all previous tri-colored corn with mostly white and a little bit of yellow and lavender kernels.
The last harvest of corn from our population of ‘MadGardenSeeds’ nitrogen fixing corn. My husband went out to the garden this time because there was a high chance of rain.
These corns were small in size, looked underdeveloped, and almost like tiller/suckers.
We didn’t get any kernals to save from any of these corns, but we did get two more pieces of huitlacoche, also known as corn smut, corn truffle, or corn mushroom. I checked online to see if it was safe to eat this fungus raw and have the smaller one a try. It has the flavor like corn, but was kinda bitter. I will try cooking the second larger piece of huitlacoche and incorporate it into a quesadilla. Which is a popular way to consume it.
This is a photo of our second best corn stalk in regards to it’s height, sets of nitrogen fixing aerial roots, and having produce some of the best corn of this generation.
The worst looking corn stalks. This one produced the corn with the dark purple colored kernals. This one looks like it didn’t produce any sets of nitrogen fixing aerial roots. They are a little nubs where the two sets would have been. It is also the smallest and weakest looking stalk of corn within this population. I believe that they were other purple kernel corn plant stalks that looked better then this one.
And lastly, Daniel also planted some more of ‘MadGardenSeeds’ nitrogen fixing corn seeds from this generation into the garden for an early Fall planting so we can get the F2 generation.
Daniel replaced the lavender colored nitrogen fixing corn kernals with these select kernals from ‘Agavemall’ on eBay.
This is a ziplock bag of our ‘A’ tier corn kernals: We started to soak these overnight and had planted out. There are large white hominy, larger yellow, pink, normal sized white, dark blood red corn and some blue types.
A photo of our ‘S’ tier corn: This is the rest of the seeds that we are saving just in case planting our corn in early August isn’t a long enough season for them to mature before the first frost here in Gainesville, FL. I didn’t want to risk planting out the good kernals and possibly losing them.
An update of the garden as we shift to the Fall season.
I will update the topmost post to reflect everything that we ever planted in this particular garden for the year 2025. Everything that has survived and had failed. With the purpose of at a glance recordkeeping.
In the foreground Daniel had planted ‘Agavemall’ nitrogen fixing corn from eBay. He wanted to sort them by color so we can assess the quality of corn from this population.
The ‘MadGardenSeeds’ corn harvest is finished. The Puerto Rican black beans are still growing up the corn stalks. Might need to help train the cowpea vines up the stalks and secure them.
The cassava is still going strong. The roots don’t look so thick yet. We will wait for the to get larger before we harvest them. So far this cultivar doesn’t blue down in the wind, which is great. Hopefully it tastes good too.
The F2, second batch of good ‘MadGardenSeeds’ corn was plant here a week ago. Some of the kernals sprouted and are looking well. We will replant more kernals of corn for this upcoming garden visit and fill in any empty spots.
We are thinking for fall of doing a proper three sister’s garden with both ‘MadGardenSeeds’ and ‘Agavemall’ nitrogen fixing corn, Puerto Rican black beans (most likely), and a mixture of moschata winter squash. We still haven’t decided if it is going to be butternuts, or the classic pumpkin shaped type.
I haven’t seen the garden yet. I have to wait until the weekend to see the progress in person.
It is also important to note, that there is definitely a shift in the weather; it’s getting cooler and there is a consistent slight breeze. It is a subtle change for the better.
Not sure if it is because of we live in North Florida or if it is because of the incoming hurricanes as we are at the beginning of hurricane season, but if is welcome.
Husband visited the garden on his own again to plant the Kentucky sorghum seed that we got from the serendipity Seed Swap box. He plans to make a malt beverage with his harvest. It’s going to be raining for the rest of the weekend so I have high hopes for it’s success. It’s also been very rainy.
We finally have one of our first flowers developing on our Puerto Rican black beans vines. I hope that the last of the dried corn stalks out there are good enough to hold up the vines we have out there. Then again we could tie twine, or some sticks horizontally from the three stalks to form a much needed trellises for the cowpeas.
The progress of the developing corn plants. We are all still planning to visit the garden on Sunday. I am very excited. We are also going to plan our the rest of the plantings for the fall garden.
