Still Waiting...

The same Early Girl mentioned here now has more than 6 fruits. The other Early Girl has a few flower clusters, but no fruit. Along with the 2 Big Boys, it is dropping blossoms. We had a few cold nights last week, which might be contributing. It was very warm over the weekend and will continue to be warm this week. Hopefully, that will help. The 4 Celebrity's have a few blossom clusters each, but no fruit yet.

No sign of the Ruby Queen yet. It's only been in the ground 12 days, so it may still come up. There are no signs of critters digging in the bed, so I believe the seeds are still there.

The Ambrosia is Gone

Something ate all the Ambrosia sprouts. I don't know if it was large or small. If the Ruby Queen sprouts, I'll have to put some cages around it.

Planted Ruby Queen Today

Made 4 pairs of furrows - 3 with 4 mounds, 1 with 3 mounds. Expecting germination by 18 June. Expecting to pick a few ears by the end of August.

Bad news - no transplant

When I went to transplant, I discovered that my errant seedlings were Ruby Queen not Ambrosia. So I'm stuck with 4 Ambrosia mounds. Hardly worth it, but I don't have another use for the plot so I'll leave them be.

Corn transplant looking likely

There is more corn sprouted in the old spot than in the new. Hmm. We are going out of town this weekend. If we get back on time on Sunday and there aren't many sprouts in the new area, I'll transplant. Then plant the Ruby Queen in the old spot. The old spots total area is larger, so I expect to plant 8 rows, 4 mounds each.

Pam noticed the corn seedlings and wasn't impressed

Pam has informed me that if we decide to move we can't sell the house with all my gardening projects in the backyard. Particularly, the stand of corn which is right outside the back door, near the hottub. I guess they are a bit unsightly. If we decide to sell the house, the gardening projects don't matter anyway, because we'll be too busy to tend to a garden.

The Ambrosia has sprouted

The Ambrosia corn has sprouted. Some in the new spot and some in the old. Actually, there are quite a few in the old spot. At this point, it looks like I'll be transplanting some of my Ambrosia seedlings.

2008 Corn: First Planting of Ambrosia

Today I planted the Ambrosia corn. 4 rows, 6 mounds, 4 seeds each. I still have a bunch of seeds left.

I think I'll plant some corn too.

I was at the Lowes today for something unrelated and wandered out into the garden center. Seeds intrigue me. Very small seedlings cost a few dollars for a 9 plants. That's not too bad. Larger seedlings cost $3-$10 each. I just can't brig myself to pay that. The whole point of growing your own is to save some money. A package of seeds goes for $1-$2 and there are many (>20) seeds in a package. And there are some plants that just don't transplant well. Corn is one of those plants. If a corn plants root system is damaged, it doesn't recover very well. In addition to the usual roots that grow near the surface, the small plant sends out a tap root shortly after germination. Any roots that are damaged during transplant (including the single tap root) won't grow, so if you are going to transplant you have to do it when the plants are still very small. And besides, corn has a very high germination rate if you wait til the soil is nice and warm.

So I bought two packs of Burpee's sugar enhanced corn. I grew up with Burpee's Silver Queen, but they didn't have any of that. I bought 1 pack of Burpee's Ambrosia, which is an 18 row white/yellow hybrid. The other pack is Burpee's Ruby Queen. It is supposed to be like Silver Queen, except the kernels are a nice ruby red color. Each pack was < $2. Nice.

After I bought my 2 packs of corn, I was investigating when to plant. During this time, the obvious became obvious to me. If you plant to different varieties of corn close to each other (where close is <600 yards), there is a pretty good chance of cross pollination. The closer together the higher the chance. Duh! My two varieties will be about 2 feet apart. Hmm. The solution seems to be to stagger the planting. Corn is generally fertile for about 2 weeks. So if the second planting goes in 3 weeks after the first planting, I won't get any cross pollination. To help my chances, I'll wait til all of my first planting sprouts or June 1st, which ever come first.