Corn Harvest

Last week it was time to harvest the corn that I have sown last spring. Corn typically likes hot weather so I had put the seeds in the ground after that the danger of frost had passed. The cobs started to form in mid-summer and they have been growing ever since. We could actually harvest and eat them once they grew big enough but we preferred to wait until the plant dried out. This makes the corn suitable for popping, for which I will share a very simple recipe in a separate post.

I prefer planting corn that is non-GMO and is full of colors. Corn can cross-pollinate so if you plant corn of different varieties, you are likely to get cobs that have multi-colored seeds. Generally corn can be planted densely with about a foot spacing between each seed. There are actually videos on Youtube that show planting 64 corns in a 4'x4' square foot garden. Check out this one, for example:

It is also suggested to plant the corn in a rectangular region, as opposed to a line as this would improve the chances of pollination. In my case, however,  the only space that I have for corn was a long thin region behind my three square foot garden boxes. I had planted planted fourteen seeds that were approximately spaced a foot apart (I actually planted two seeds at each location in case one didn't germinate -- I simply pulled out the weaker one if both germinated). Here are some pictures:

To summarize corn is a great vegetable to plant, which is pretty easy to grow. Just plant it in spring and harvest in summer or autumn depending on whether you like fresh corn or corn that can be popped.