What Did You Do In The Garden?

[ducks4you]

In your area, farmers plant 34-40,000 per acre on 30” rows. That is roughly 2/foot. IF you water and feed it (agree with @Ridgerunner), it will be fine. At lower pops, the ear might be slightly larger but not enough to make up for the extra production that more ears will give you. I plant 6” apart on rows that vary (I have a hard time making straight rows) from 20-30” and get normal ears on sand. FYI, corn uses 90% of its water through pollination.

Guess I will plant closer in my second and third plantings. Thanks for the advice!
Any thoughts as to why so many articles suggest planting further away?

 

[Rhodie Ranch]

We had a storm come in - predicted with a splash of tiny rain. But not predicted was the wind. For three hours!

OH MY GOSH. My two of the four roller shades outside (facing due West) got whipped around and one tore. I had to get out the 8ft ladder, climp up and using ropes, tie both of them up. Neither of them work anymore; they just hang. I've tried to bungie them but this wind was fierce.

It knocked over a potted dappled willow tree, tossed some plants from my patio table onto the ground, blew a hanging fuschia off its hook and I had two dogs cowering around my legs. The side of the house where my proud hidden hillbilly garden is did OK - just debris everywhere.

 

[seedcorn]

Guess I will plant closer in my second and third plantings. Thanks for the advice!
Any thoughts as to why so many articles suggest planting further away?

Pure speculation......
1). They don’t want max yields which requires management-feeding, water, weeding, etc.
2). They want as large of an ear as they can get. Above you will get some ear tip abortion-aborted kernels would have been small and look worse than they are.
3). Certain “heritage” varieties may not be able to handle pops. (In fairness, I grow sweet corn for a sweet corn-what some call “sweet corn” I’d refer to it as field corn. There are commercial varieties that are grown for feed that are sweeter than some old “stand by’s”).

 

[Prairie Rose]

Went out early this morning and pulled weeds, watered a few plugs that needed it, and turned my compost piles. After I have a late breakfast I am going to suit up and go out to open up my bee hive. There's been activity on it for almost three weeks now, and I didn't want to disturb a swarm settling in. I want to know for sure if there are bees in there or not, because I had plans this summer to move my hives to a different location on a new stand.

 

[Cosmo spring garden]

It's hot and humid here. Still spent couple of hours pulling weeds, taking pictures, changing ducks water, staking up tomatoes that decided to volunteer at the weirdest places and playing with my son.

 

[digitS']

Short day in the garden.

Put another layer of string on the pea trellis. They are growing nicely in this cool spring weather.

I'll need to be out there with the Spinosad soon. The flea beetles are really damaging the potatoes and tomato plants.

Pulled some weeds in the onions. So much purslane! Most are tiny plants but the onions are just getting a good start. Put some composted chicken manure on but that will only smother the smaller purslane. It's certainly an okay thing to do. Such an easy to kill weed that must produce an enormous number of seeds from its tiny flowers. Can only stay up with them because there are just too many feet of growing space to get ahead of them ...

Steve

 

[Zeedman]

Had a couple hours after work, before the rain from Cristobal reached us; so put some of our bean & lima transplants into the home hardens. Then loaded up the tractor & headed to the rural garden, in hopes of turning it over before the rain. I was tilling the last row when the first raindrops fell. Round Two of the rainfall mostly missed us, so the ground here is not too waterlogged (much worse just one county over East & South). My job just cut back from extended overtime to normal hours, and with a pretty good stretch of fair weather ahead, there's a good chance we will finally get the rural garden planted. A good thing too, the transplants headed that way are becoming unruly... I had to top the tomato plants last week.

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

Warmed up today and stopped raining and I replanted 4 peppers the birds had messed up. They stayed out of the last row I had planted. I weeded the peppers and I planted 6 more. I planted 2 rows of lettuce seed and a row of Swiss chard.

 

[flowerbug]

Short day in the garden.

Put another layer of string on the pea trellis. They are growing nicely in this cool spring weather.

I'll need to be out there with the Spinosad soon. The flea beetles are really damaging the potatoes and tomato plants.

Pulled some weeds in the onions. So much purslane! Most are tiny plants but the onions are just getting a good start. Put some composted chicken manure on but that will only smother the smaller purslane. It's certainly an okay thing to do. Such an easy to kill weed that must produce an enormous number of seeds from its tiny flowers. Can only stay up with them because there are just too many feet of growing space to get ahead of them ...

Steve

yeah, the seeds are tiny specks, just like those on moss roses (which i wish would grow wild here better than they do). either way they are edible so i tend to leave a few here or there. stirrup hoe at least knocks them back and if they are small enough and it is hot enough that will do them in. the bigger plants can eventually reroot and regrow but i just keep cutting them off at the pass...

 

[flowerbug]

today i had to move some pavers to find the chipmunk that managed to get shot and then crawl under there. poor critter. buried it and then started working on that line of stacked pavers to make it so there is no hiding spots for anything to crawl into. i say started because then i had to help Mom work on cementing some larger stepping stones on top of the pedestals for the benches we had which rotted.

...an hour later...

back to the paver restacking which i had no plans to do, i really needed to weed that garden and was the real place i wanted to get going.

well eventually i got to the corner of the pavers and it takes a turn to go west and that too was in need of restacking and rethinking... well so i get to the next spot where there is a bit of a corner and i realized that i liked how much better this line is going so i should go back and redo what i'd just done 8ft back... um, nope, i don't have time for that! as much as i'd like... so it will stay like this until i can get the garden weeded and back into shape after being neglected for a month and a half. it will take several days i'm sure. more so, since it has been raining (and maybe more this evening).

...came in had a bite to eat, took a few hour nap...

went out and picked strawberries, have to clean them up, we are both trying to avoid extra calories so it will be only strawberries and whipped cream and no extra sugar or shortcakes. i can also pretend there are no shortbread or other cookies in the freezer.

now the question is do i eat them before or after dinner?