Growing Corn In Your Vegetable Garden
Apr 9th, 2009 by tommy
Growing corn provides a special treat for home gardeners. Corn is easy to grow, easy to harvest, and definitely easy to eat. Although corn is easy to grow, there are a few tips you should keep in mind when you decide you would like to try growing corn in your garden.
Corn is susceptible to wind damage. I specifically remember coming home one evening with my family as a child. It had been raining and the wind was blowing furiously. As we drove into the driveway my dad noticed most of our corn in the garden was laying over. We went out that evening stood the corn plants back up and packed the muddy soil around the roots and base of the stalks to hold them in place. This may be an extreme example, but it does show the vulnerability of corn to wind damage. If you have a choice of locations to plant, it’s best to choose the one less affected by wind.
Corn is a monocot, or grass, species. Just like your lawn needs plenty of fertilizer (particularly nitrogen) growing corn also requires higher levels of this nutrient. It’s always best to have your soil checked through your county extension service to provide you with a baseline of how much fertilizer your growing corn will need.
Although wind can damage growing corn, it is also important for fertilization. As the pollen matures on the top of the plant, which is actually a flower, it is carried by wind to the silks of the immature corn ear. The pollen then travels down into the husk to fertilize each kernel, or seed. Improper fertilization results in underfilled ears. To help with this mechanism it is always a good idea to plant corn in blocks at least ten feet wide by 10 feet across. Within the blocks the rows should be one foot apart.
Growing corn in the home garden is easy and fun. Sure, you can go to the market and purchase a dozen ears for two dollars. But, if you have the space in your garden, growing corn yourself will provide you with the freshest flavor and a great sense of accomplishment.
Related posts:
- Growing Beans in Your Garden
- How To Start A Vegetable Garden From Bare (or not so bare!) Ground – Garden size considerations
- How To Make Money With Your Vegetable Garden – My Experience
Thank you for sharing your article on growing corn in your garden. I just moved to AZ and I am going to try to grow it this summer and see how it turns out.
Howdy Y’all,
My Grandpa called it “lodge poling” when wind or soft soil laid the mature core stalks over.
He would plow a furrow 8″ deep and plant the seed 1/2″ deep in the bottom of the furrow. When the corn was about 18″ tall, he would turn the soil into the furrow, level with the field/garden.
The down side to this is, if you have a lot of rain, before the corn starts growing, the furrows will fill in. Normally, the seeds will “float”.
When that happens, it takes longer for the plants to come up and you’re still stuck with the original problem of possible “lodge poling”.
Hope this helps someone,
Darrell
I heard that I am supposed to cut the tops off the corn after ears appear. Is this true? If so, when and how far to down do I cut the tops?
Mary,
Cutting the tops off the corn is not required. It’s somewhat of an old wives tale that really doen’t help.
-Tommy
My corn stalks are turning yellow at the bottom. Why?
Thanks for any input on this!
Gayle,
Corn plants, like all members of the grass family, are very high users of nitrogen. Nitrogen is used as the central molecule in chlorophyll which is what makes plants green and is responsible for photosynthesis.
Nitrogen is also a very mobile element both in the soil (moves downwards with rain or irrigation) and the plant (moves from the older leaves to the growing point). Your issue is likely a deficiency in this nutrient and the plant is moving it from the lower leaves to support continued growth.
What you can do: If the plants have already produced ears and the ears are at or near their final development stage, you really don’t need to do anything. However, if the ears are just starting or have not begun to form you can apply a fertilizer such as 15-30-15 at a rate of 1lb. per 100 ft. of row. Simply apply the fertilizer no closer than six inches from the base of your plants in a line down the row. Alternatively, if you prefer organic forms, you can apply bone meal or blood meal at the same rate. Be sure to water in the fertilizer after application for quickest results.
Thanks for your question and happy gardening to you!
Tommy
Well, I’m sure it’s me, I live in Oregon and have been trying to grow corn now for three years. Every year, the stalks don’t grow higher than 3-4 feet, and the actual corn only grows halfway up the cob. I just learned that I need to fertilize corn, which I haven’t been doing. I’m also wondering if the Oregon rocky soil isn’t fertile enough, although I see my neighbor’s corn about ten feet high. It’s been very frustrating.
the tips of my corn are white and not filled with kernels? Help. I live in Long Island, NY. The rest of the corn is tasty, but would like to have a full ear of corn to eat!
cathy
We are growing corn for the first time this year, it is doing really well. We did have some wind problems early on but stood them up and packed mud around them and they were fine from then on. My question is when do we harvest it and also is there a proper technique or do we just cut the ears off at the base?
Thanks for the tips!
I was searching for new ideas to diversify my garden and found your idea very interresting. I always thought harvesting corn should be done in massivle fields, not in small scale, personal harvesting gardens.
i love my own garden
I never thought I could easily grow corn in my garden.. Thanks for the tips, I’ll try to grow some next year.