Beautiful Home Garden

Growing up, I always enjoyed trying to grow corn in our garden.  I remember (mostly through pictures) being 7-8 years old and tilling up the garden at my grandfathers back yard.  It was so far away from the house that we would use an old metal bucket and a metal dipper to water each plant mound individual.  It was great to experience the seeds turning into many different fruits (that I really didn’t like to eat anyway!)

One crop that is rather different to grow in a home garden is corn.  Corn is very particular about how it gets pollinated the best.  I learned this the hard way years ago and have since confirmed my suspicions.  Many people when they are laying out their gardens, don’t usually have an abundance of room, so they will lay out the corn (being that it is so tall) alone one side of the garden in a single row.  That will maximize space in the garden and allow for all the crops wanted for harvest.  The problem with that, is corn has to do much cross pollination with itself in order to get a good crop production.

What I am saying is, corn has to have multiple rows beside one another to get the pollination it requires to produce the ears of corn.  According to the UT Agricultural  Extension agency, you must plant corn in a minimum of 3 row blocks.  Or for the limited space garden, you can use the double row block method.  2 rows that are about 12 inches apart, with the plants being 12 inches apart in the row, then about 30 inches and do another 2 rows of corn the same distance apart.  Doing this no more than 3-4 blocks will yield a great harvest of corn.

Also, don’t hesitate using some really high nitrogen fertilizer when the plant is about 12 inches high.

Happy Corn