Wednesday, August 1, 2012

The Corn Patch

We did it, we actually have a good looking corn crop. The lack of rain, hasn't been in our favor but Carl made up for it with a lot of watering. We have quite a few hoses on the Ranch now - about 1000 feet actually. We, I guess I should say Carl, planted the corn on May 26th. The engineer has to make sure every row is measured and straight but since he used this small corn planter from my parents that kind of bounced around over the dirt clods, the rows aren't perfectly straight - at least to Carl's liking.

We, yes I helped too, hauled off a lot of weeds to get this area ready for the corn but they just keep coming back. I can't even remember how many hours we have spent out there weeding but it's a lot. And there are still a bunch of weeds out there, the weeds are winning this battle for sure. I also planted a 100ft row of zinnias along one side of the corn. They just bloomed in the last week or so. 

This photo shows the corn on July 14th (top photo) and then on July 31st (bottom photo).
 
Carl has put nitrogen on it two times and it really takes off right after that. The rain in the last few weeks has really helped it out too. Although, Carl has become good friends with the sprinkler this summer. The telescoping sprinkler saved our corn.


We planted a few different brands of corn, on the left of the picture below is Pioneer sweet corn, then we planted some Becks corn and not one stalk came up, then on the right side we planted some sweet corn from the hardware store, I can't remember the name.
All of the corn stalks have ears on them but we think it will be a few more weeks until we have corn ready to pick. That's when the fun begins, I guess??? We are hoping to be able to sell some at the farmers market and give some to our families and also can and freeze a bunch for us. Carl keeps telling me there is going to be truckloads of corn to pick and I need to get ready. I'll get back to you in a few weeks to let you know how it goes...hahaha.

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