Growing Corn – Tips to Improve Your Harvest
Corn can be grown easily in any vegetable garden with sufficient amounts of nutrition and care during the warm season. Repeated growth of corn will improve your soil structure and fertility, thus giving you better harvests with every crop cycle.
Growing Corn – Vegetable Gardening
Many farmers prefer growing corn for simple one reason, and that is, its taste, sweetness and tenderness; it’s hard to resist freshly harvested corn. But the key to growing a successful batch of corn is warm weather, adequate soil conditions and optimum harvesting. But bringing about a good harvest is often fraught with challenges in the form of attack by crows, squirrels, raccoons and other pests. Also, you corn plantation will require a lot of attention. You must make sure that it gets enough sunlight and warmth. And even though it requires heat for growing corn, the soil must retain a good amount of moisture and an even supply of it. There are a lot of hybrid varieties of corn available today for home gardeners, and even some types depending on the region you are from. If you’re planning to grow sweet corn in your home garden, it is a good idea to read up about the plant habitat before to avoid errors.
Corn Seeds – the Way to Popcorn
Most of the world’s corn plantations are grown around America, mostly Mexico and some of them in India as well. The best time to plant corn seeds is late spring or early summer when the soil starts getting warm. Different varieties of corn have different types of kernels or seeds, in terms of size and shape. Now corn is wind pollinated and you should sow the seeds so that they are in several even rows. The seeds won’t germinate unless the soil temperature is above or atleast 55 degrees F. The seeds will germinate within 4 days to a week. You can store the unsown seeds for nearly two years. It is a common misconception that early planting will give you an early harvest, as even well-adapted types of corn have difficulty in germinating if the soil is not sufficiently warm. But if you’re still determined, then a clear plastic sheet will help you by warming the soil a bit and letting you plant the corn seeds three weeks earlier than usual. Don’t forget to remove the plastic sheet after the seedlings have appeared.
Planting Corn – Helpful Tips
The best time for planting corn is between mid-May and mid-June. The soil should be warm enough (55 to 60F) and must be treated with fungicide and compost and mixed well before you sow the seeds. Once that is done, water the soil, and let it warm nicely. Make a furrow for each row of crop and drop the seeds in about 20 to 25cms intervals from each other, and 80cms apart in each row. This will give you space to move between the stalks as they grow. And remember that as corn is wind pollinated, you should keep different breeds of corn atleast 25 feet away from each other. Preferably for home gardeners, growing a single type of corn is better. Remember also that corn needs a lot of nutrition, especially nitrogen, and also drinks a lot of water. And your biggest challenges are animals that love corn as much as you do. So keep regular check on the plants, use pest deterrents and let your corn grow healthy.