The 2015 Corn Crop

The stellar weather motivated Russ and I to get the 2015 Corn crop in the ground. On Friday afternoon, as we showed in This Blog Post, we each got a shovel and turned over some land just east of the row of Irish Potatoes.  This land was earmarked for planting sweet corn.  After mixing in some composted chicken litter, we were ready to begin planting the next morning.

Field of Dreams

We have a few varieties of heirloom corn that we are planting this year.  Below on the left we have Stowell's Evergreen Sweet Corn and on the right, we have Golden Bantam 12-row corn.  We haven't tried planting the Golden Bantam corn before, but have planted the Stowell's Evergreen sweet corn several years running.

Two of the Three Corn Varieties we are planting

In order to speed up germination, we poured the seeds into cups of water and allowed them to soak all day long   Soaking allows the dried seed to re-hydrate, soaking up the water until they are plump.

We like trying new heirloom varieties and we have a new corn variety that we are excited about.  It is called Bloody Butcher Dent Corn.  Tricia picked this up at a seed swap at a Sustainable Agriculture Conference that she attended.  It is an old variety that has been planted in the US since around 1845 in the area around Virginia.  It is said to be a cross between corn that the American settlers brought with them and corn they obtained from Native Americans.  It is said to grow 10 - 12 feet tall.  If I recall correctly, she brought some sunflower seeds and coriander (cilantro) seeds that we had saved and traded them for the seed corn you see below:

Bloody Butcher Dent corn

I can see why it is called Bloody Butcher Dent corn, can't you?  It is a beautiful red color.  Now, because it is dent corn, it is not meant to be eaten like the two varieties of sweet corn that we're soaking that you saw in the photos above.  Instead, this corn is supposed to be dried and ground into corn meal or grits.  We'll save some ears for seed corn if the yield and quality is good.  We started this handful of seeds soaking as well.

While the seeds continued to soak, we went outside, stuck a shovel in the ground and stretched out a long strand of baling twine that we had saved.  It was stretched clear to the end of the row and then we used a stake to make a trench beneath the twine.  The trench was about 1 1/2 - 2 inches deep. When done, we moved the string over 8 inches and repeated the process so that we have one large flat hilled up row that will have two lines of corn on top.

The whole thing about stretching the string to make a straight row is not necessary. It is just an orderly thing that is probably just habit.  Back when I was growing up, we'd plant soybeans and it was very important that your rows be straight because you would cultivate them.  If your rows were crooked, when you'd pull the cultivator behind the tractor, you'd run over your soybeans!  Of course this corn will be cultivated by hand with a hoe, so I suppose straight rows are not compulsory.

Straight rows of corn

And now it is time to put the seed corn in the soil.  The soil is beginning to warm with Spring temperatures approaching 80.  The water-swelled seed dropped in warming soil should awaken the life within the seed from its slumber, propelling it from the ground skyward.

Sowing seeds

We covered up the seed corn and watered it in.  Except we ran out of room to plant all the corn we had soaking.  We only had 27 kernels of the Bloody Butcher Seed corn and I planted it on the very end of the row.  The Golden Bantam 12 row corn was planted on three 30 foot rows in the garden that we hastily pulled up.

Swelled up Bloody Butcher Dent Corn

After all of the corn was planted, we transplanted into the garden our tomato and pepper seedlings that we had grown from seed.  Spring is an exciting time to be alive.  Getting in the garden and getting your hands dirty, anticipating delicious crops that will ripen and grace your table are things you never get tired of.