Sweetcorn: Sowing the seeds
12Thursday 09 July, 2015 by Uncle Spike
Terry said to plant the seeds 6″ apart….
Yes, the advice from my all American farming friends in Colorado, who grow maize on an industrial scale, reckoned I usually planted simply too much seed for the stony soil consistency we have here. So I thought, what the heck, I had some spare time on day, so lets take him at his word and do this properly 🙂
Having already dug the soil over to a depth of 25cm (10″) three times in order to mix in the assorted ‘poo’ – of the chicken, goat and cow variety – out came the old metal rake, which I then used to create pretty little rectangles.
As daft as this might look, I did have a method in my madness; you see, the land I’m planting has a slight two-directional gradient, and with such porous soil, the challenge is ensuring the water and therefore nutrients don’t just end up at one end – easier said than done!
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Yes it was overkill, but sometimes one just has to do as one is told (even me), and so “every 6 inches” it was to be. Using a piece of a branch from a nectarine tree, I made shallow holes in the pre-watered planting rectangles, and popped one seed into each. Not quite the rough plough and scatter method most farms employ, but why not? 🙂
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And then we waited…
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A couple of weeks later and this was the picture. Most seeds had taken, and the spread between plants was pretty even – job done (part one anyway).
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That’s a lot of hard work – but it looks like you are going to be rewarded with healthy corn. 🙂
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Maybe, maybe not, but it’s always fun to try…
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You never know unless you try… 🙂
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I hope you folks enjoy many cobs of juicy, sweet corn, as a reward for your labour.
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Your squares are reminiscent of the pattern used by the Pueblo Indians of North America. It’s a way of capturing all the available rainfall.
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Were we to do that here, every blessed seed would be transplanted by the squirrels to an alternate location. Trust me on this. I have seen our tulips growing merrily on the golf course. And we all were quite surprised to see somebody’s corn growing next to the from door.
As a deeply sequential person who is also a quilter, your little squares and your Corn Sequencing Act (sounds like a Farm bill working its way through congress) is deeply satisfying.
🙂 m & jb who is quite attached to sequences herself
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Never seen a squirrel here, perhaps once. Strange as we are surrounded by pine forest – but I guess there is so much for them to do, they don’t bother veturing all the way down here.
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Brilliant job Spike! Pat yourself on the back 😃
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Done. Ouch.
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Yep, leveling the soil…with a small grade! Looking very good. Just like those big guys who plant with a GPS system…we don’t of course.
Linda
http://coloradofarmlife.wordpress.com
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That’s such a different world you talk of. The ‘big farmers’ here still sow by hand 🙂
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Looking good!
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