This year I am growing about 1,000 square feet of sweet corn. I’ll be using seed I saved from my crop last year, which originally came from Julia Dakin’s corn crop in nearby Caspar.
Our coastal climate is very cool in the summer, we have sandy soil, salty winds, and lots of gopher pressure. Last summer, our corn crop did very well, but we did use fabric to suppress weeds and heat up the soil. This year, I won’t be using any interventions or amendments. We are also planting more plants to increase chances of pollination.
I seeded the sweet corn on April 6, 2024 into 72-cell trays. I decided to start the seeds in our greenhouse to help streamline the work of this project in with the rest of our farm - I was already seeding other summer crops and using seeding methods already in place on our farm.
I also seeded some dry beans that I got from Going to Seeds, to interplant with the corn just as an added experiment to the project
Planted our corn starts on May 2. These beds had a nice cover crop over winter, and then were mowed and tarped for about 3 weeks before planting into. We applied a thin layer of compost and the beds are so wet from our crazy rainy winter that I didn’t have to water them in, and another rain storm came in the next day! So far none have been claimed by gophers and they are looking good!
I like this picture because you can see the fog that is ever present on our farm during the summer. The second picture is west facing and if you squint you can see the ocean beyond the fence
