Comments on: Poor Corn Production, and How ‘Bout helping Me Out Here??

By: Bonnie Hollingsworth

Bonnie Hollingsworth — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 18:34:00 +0000

Hey Sandy, I can identify with snitching the corn and yes, even the mule. We had one that we had to work with blinders she was so spooky. The rest of them were great and we would ride them to the swimming hole. I agree with you on the child labor. It was not only a good thing, but a FAMILY thing. I miss it, also. My growing up years and my parents were both blessings in my life. I SO don’t miss tobacco worms, though! Ha ha!

By: Sandy Grant

Sandy Grant — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 17:38:35 +0000

Haven’t planted corn in years. I was raised on field corn and it is only good about 1-2 weeks in July. I make creamed fried corn with that and in the freezer it goes. It is getting harder and harder to find.
When I did plant some corn I never had any luck with it but didn’t persue it.

By: Sandra

Sandra — Sat, 23 Apr 2011 12:35:34 +0000

Dear Bon, thanks for reminding me of the corn ditty. It was exactly the same. I need to embroider that and hang it on the wall. Memory chips are getting full and getting harder and harder to retrieve complete info.
I do remember the crows, oh yes. My Dad would send me out with my bag of corn seed to plant and then there would be that walk up and down the rows pointing out spaces. Back to the corn rows with my bag of corn seed and fill. Grandaddy would be notified and out he would come with his blunderbus and shoot birds while we were at school and work. As a child I thought this would never end, but then CORN! So much corn.
I used to sneak into the field and and pick juicy little nibbles from the stalks and sit by the post of the barbed wire fence and Mike the Mule and I would enjoy the fruits of our labor. Woe was me if I got caught. Mike the Mule would just smile because he was not the thief he just ate the corn. Child labor? Don’t know about you but I thought it was grand. Miss it and them. Walking back in time and smiling

By: Bonnie Hollingsworth

Bonnie Hollingsworth — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 21:07:08 +0000

OOPS! I forgot to tell you that I also agree with Kunoichi on the seeds themselves. Any reputable seed purveyor knows the germination percentage for that particular batch of seeds. If in packets and it doesn’t say, I don’t buy. If in bulk and they are measured out in bags for you, ask!

By: Bonnie Hollingsworth

Bonnie Hollingsworth — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 21:03:12 +0000

Okay, Dub, here goes nuthin’! First, I am probably in agreement with Kunoichi that it may be wise to get a soil-testing kit, though I have never tested mine. We just keep adding organic matter and mulch. A couple of years ago we had very few seeds come up at all on our first planting; I’m talking corn, beans, peas, and all! I woke up early one morning for some reason and instead of taking my coffee to the porch swing I sat down by the kitchen table and looked out the window. My little garden was literally COVERED with crows. They were feasting away on our seeds, almost as if they had a map to where each one was. THAT was an easy answer. I just replanted. By the way for Sandra, whether it was right or not, my daddy used to say, “One for the worm, one for the crow, one for God, and two to grow!” He also used to have a plaque that said, “The kiss of the sun for pardon, the song of the bird for mirth; one is nearer God’s heart in a garden, than any place else on earth.” I loved it. I told my siblings that none of us really know what is in Heaven, but I’m sure that if God gave my dad a little plot of ground and put a hoe in his hand, he truly IS in Heaven! Sorry ’bout that; back to Dub’s corn. I think a little sodium nitrate would green it right up, but………you can’t get that everywhere anymore. Comment on that would be appreciated, Kunoichi! Let us also talk about watering. Yes, a good old soaking rain is the best. However, I don’t sprinkle any more. If the weather has been dry for a long time, I thoroughly soak my garden and then don’t water for a while. (I don’t have to water frequently anyway, tho, as I use a lot of mulch.) Anyway, if you sprinkle a lot and don’t deep water, the plant doesn’t have to really work to grow strong and GET water. The roots will stay shallow because you are giving them all the water they need that is easy to get to. If you let them sort of dry out a little, they will put down longer, stronger roots in their search for water. In a houseplant, there is a difference between leaves getting dry and leaves turning a little yellow. The yellow often means that you are giving them too much water. I’m by no means an expert on the matter, but that’s what I taught for all those years when I was teaching vegetative propagation for an international greenhouse company.

Good luck with your bee lessons, Dub, and it should pay off for y’all big time! I LOVE my honey that I get from a neighbor. I am no longer afraid of bees like I was when I was just a young’un, either. After having to return horses, dogs, and even a steer to my neighbors here and there, our bee keeper knocked on our door one day and told me he had a swarm of his bees swarming in my holly tree. He apologized, but wanted me to come out and watch. I was a little leary, but did go out with him. When we got close enough that some bees were beginning to be all around me, I started backing up a little. He told me if I wouldn’t panic, run, or show fear, they would NOT sting me when they were swarming. He was right, I guess. I just stood still about 12 feet away from my holly tree, with bees all around me, and watched an amazing thing. Only a handful of bees were actually hanging onto the tree limb, but the rest kept sort of hanging onto each other until a sort of “funnel” of bees was complete. Nary a sting did either one of us get, and I was in awe at watching them hang onto each other and build that funnel formation with very few of them on the actual limb. When the swarm was complete he told me he would go get a “box”, sit in under my tree, and that they would go to the box around sundown and he would come get them and take them home. He did, and they did. I don’t know what kind of bees he has now, but he did not have good luck with the five-banded Italian bees. Right now has very happy bees that are doing real well. Ask your bee lady if they really don’t sting when they are swarming, or was my neighbor just “pulling my leg”!

Good luck with your corn, whatever it takes. Try a little something different in a few different places in the rows!

By: Sandra

Sandra — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 13:24:53 +0000

Two for one day.
“Bee Lady cometh”
Cannot wait for this one, Dub. I know how you like to experience things first hand.
Bees are a very important part of Nature. Bees have been Man’s friend since he saw a bear climb a tree and stick a big paw in a bee hive and pull out a large hunk of comb and honey and eat it. Man has been climbing trees since seeking that natural sweet. Lucky you, we now have little boxes on the ground for easier harvest. Your Bee Lady gives new meaning to “Queen Bee”.

Corn Queen
Corn is a product that has been hybridized and geneitcally engineered for quite sometime now.
Ask your dealer about the viability rate of the seed. It should be labeled. To test your own seed look up on the internet how spout seeds to check for viabilty rate.
Pale stunted corn. Not being there and seeing corn up close and personal, think you have ph or fertilizer problem. Gypsom is recommended soil amendment in sandy soils. Peat and such washes away. Find you a small test spot and sprinkle some lime around your plants and scratch into soil and see what happens. Readers out there please correct any of these statements and lend a helping hand.
Rule of thumb here in the past was a hill (long row, soil peaking in middle) 5 seeds per hill 12 -18″ apart. There was a ditty (little poem) that applied to planting corn. One for birds, one for God, three to grow. Don’t remember it all. Do remember that the corn was thinned to two to three strongest plants. We had a lot of corn.
Hands on gardener here. Feel my way through it.

In reference to the lime. Don’t run off and buy a big bag of costly lime for the test.
Go to Grocer and look for pickling lime in the little bag. Works just fine. That way you won’t get stuck with the fifty pound bag in the garage that Deb can’t pick up.

By: Kunoichi

Kunoichi — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 06:33:50 +0000

Well, I’ve asked around, and no gardener I know has had this happen to them. I’ve only seen something similar with commercial growers, and it was due to acidity.

It certainly may be a bad batch of seed, but I’d suggest picking up a ph test kit before changing seed suppliers, just in case.