A Maizing

A small bunch of corn (maize) plants may not appear particularly interesting or exciting to anyone who's driven through the vast oceans of the stuff in the US Midwest. It's not exactly uncommon either, being the world's most produced crop by weight. But a home-grown crop of the freshest, organic sweet corn is one of my favourite things about Summer. It's fast and relatively easy to grow, productive and makes any garden look satisfyingly farm-like.

How the corn looked about 8 weeks ago...

..and how it looks today.

Before too long the corn plants, actually a kind of grass, are rocketing skywards and deploying their flowers.

This year I'm growing a hybrid variety called "Honey & Cream" with variegated yellow and white kernels. Last year's crop of open pollinated "Golden Bantam" wasn't very successful, mostly because I left them too long before harvesting, so they were pretty starchy and dry. I might try them again next year. The hybrid varieties tend to be sweeter and keep longer so are a little less crucial with regards to timing. Nonetheless I've been gently opening one up to have a peek from time and checking if it's ready.

The corn should be ready for harvest when the silk at the end dries out and turns brown.

Today it looked about right so I picked it to try out. The husk was peeled back to reveal:

Glossy yellow and white kernels

Very pretty but the kernels towards the tip seemed a bit underdeveloped. I cooked it up anyway and we had a taste; not bad but probably needed a few more days. So, the more mature ears should be about ready for Christmas. I've also underplanted the corn with "Purple King" climbing beans, which will grow up the stalks and help replenish soil nitrogen. And give us more tasty beans of course.

Corn Factoids*
- 2009 world production was over 817 million tons.
- Only 2.5% of US production is for human consumption. Most of for animal feed. 
- Almost every kind of processed food has some sort of corn-derived ingredient in it.
- GM maize allows greater use of glyphosate pesticide.
- Australian maize commands a premium as GM maize is not grown here so there is no risk of contamination.
- In the US there are maize mazes, corn theme parks and even conferences about maize mazes and corn theme parks.
- Home grown corn is yummy.

*from Wikipedia and other unreliable sources

Sunflower #2

Last year's sunflowers were a big success and much admired by passers by. In fact so admired by one individual that they felt the need to take one home with them. All part and parcel for anything within grasping range of a public footpath I suppose, but still disappointing.

This year we'd planned to plant more, but with only six out of ten seeds germinating, then two plants uprooted when small, we ended up with four once again. This was all right, because thanks to more careful soil preparation this year, they got kind of huge.

It also helped that they were planted a bit earlier and the soil in that part of the garden has been raised up by 20cm or so, meaning they're less shaded by the wall as seedlings. With the soil level being about 50cm above the footpath, they tower over passing pedestrians.

 

 Sadly, there's still someone in our neighbourhood who doesn't know how to share. This year it was sunflower #2 that was brutally beheaded sometime between 7:30am and 5:30pm yesterday.

It's obviously not the work of the big white bat, ratties or especially hungry caterpillars, but rather something with two hands, opposable thumbs and significant psychological problems. After a few seconds of disbelief followed by a minute or so of anger, I resolved to put that aside, have a good think about the situation and not let it ruin my day. It was after all the beginning of my holidays.

Today I'm feeling better. You see there are a few lessons I've learnt about growing things: the need for patience, persistence, close observation and making adjustments when required. Adaptability in other words. And having some humanoid rip off sunflowers is no different to suffering damage from under-watering, over-watering, too little sun, too much sun, the wrong soil, nematodes, fungus or fruit fly. It's just another of those unavoidable factors in need of consideration when choosing what, when and where to plant.

Staring down the street at oncoming pedestrians.

Sadly, there are no (legal) organic remedies for large mammalian garden pests. And my initial thoughts of attaching razor wire or electrodes to the stems would probably spoil the sunflowers' cheerful appearance.

So for now I'll have to be content to enjoy them while they last and plan to grow them somewhere else, out of arms reach, next year. Either that or install a Buddha statue with motion-tracking head and laser beam eyes.

Lettuce Be Thankful

Leafy greens, especially fast growing ones like lettuce, must be some of the easiest vegies to grow. Some half-decent soil, lots of water and a bit of sun and they grow faster than the snails can eat them. Almost. Probably the first thing you need to realise about growing lettuce is that you shouldn't expect to produce a perfect supermarket-sized Iceberg on your first attempt. The second thing to realise is that you actually don't want to. There are far more tasty, nutritious, attractive and productive varieties available especially for the home gardener. Some have been around for centuries, and with good reason. Here are a few varieties currently growing in the Front Yard Farm:

Australian Yellow Leaf

This is the first time I've grown Australian Yellow Leaf. It appears to be fast growing, heat tolerant and so green it's practically fluorescent. I haven't actually tasted it yet but it's going in tomorrow's salad so I'll let you know.

Royal Oakleaf

Royal Oakleaf is a great lettuce for sandwiches and contrasts nicely with the more solid-leafed varieties. It's something of an old fashioned variety, having been first listed in 1771.

Lollo Rosso

The frilly Lollo Rosso looks as good in the garden as it does in mixed leaf salads. Mine never seem to grow as fast as the green leafed varieties but I'm still going to keep growing it.

So what do you do with all these fancy lettuces? You make an edible ornamental border of course.

Lettuce Collection

So far these are all loose-leaf lettuces. The advantages of these are that they're slower to bolt to seed and you can harvest them as needed rather than the all-or-nothing production of headed lettuces. This year I also planted some Green Mignonette lettuce, which are almost a heading variety, with the leaves quite closely bunched. It's really a bit hot here in Summer for these guys and they ran to seed before getting very large. They do well over Winter in full sun, and last Summer did fairly well in partial shade. Unlike some other varieties they don't go bitter when they bolt, so all is not lost if you let them turn into skyscrapers.

 

Green Mignonette

Some tricks for successful lettuce production are:

- Prepare a well drained soil with plenty of manure and/or compost. Mulch to retain moisture.

- Water lots. All the time. Every day or even twice a day when it's really hot.

- Water with seaweed extract and/or fish emulsion every week or two. On a quiet night you can hear them growing.

- If they bolt to seed or just die then don't despair, try another variety.

- Keep them coming. You need to start raising seedlings soon after you've planted out the last ones to keep a constant supply going. Stagger your planting to avoid gluts. If you want. Sometimes gluts are fun.

- Grow lots. If you have too many, give them away to friends. Everyone likes fresh organic lettuce. Just warn them that you don't use pesticides and if they're very lucky they may find a little bonus slug inside.

There, you no longer have any excuse to not grow lettuce. Get a pot, a polystyrene box or a spare spot in the garden and off you go. Now!

Spring Sputters

Spring has departed. Like a slinky down the stairs, it slunk away from me. I know where some of it went, but there's still a large portion of it unaccounted for. One week was a quick trip to Tasmania. That was followed closely by a work trip to Germany which was supposed to be for only a week but turned into three. So that's one third of it gone. The rest, I don't know about.

I have to send a special thanks to Suyin, who kept everything alive while I was away. Even lugging a watering can down my annoyingly convoluted path when she was sick with the flu. She even did some weeding, despite her wormyphobia. Hopefully the fresh peas and radishes were some small compensation. Oh yes, the peas. Here's what they looked like back in late October, just before I went away:

Golden Podded Peas mit Golden Pods!

 The golden podded peas matured first and tasted great pods and all when eaten like snow peas.

They can be picked at this stage and eaten as snow peas or left a bit longer to use as shelling peas.

The purple podded Dutch peas took a little longer but have magnificent purple flowers.

By the time I got back they were all but done. There were a few of the purple ones left which had got a bit old and hard. No matter, they were all a bit of an experiment to see if I could get a Spring crop before the sun got too hot and toasted them. I'll plant some more in Autumn.

Now on to proper Summer crops, and here's the amazing circle of corn, again from late October:

Crop Circle

You'll notice that I have two sizes of corn. For some reason most of the seeds I planted on the left side didn't germinate. Either that or some little rattie dug them up and ate them. I suspect the rattie. 

Corn, lettuce and very small tomato seedlings

 Here you can also see the trellis for the tomatoes and some lettuce seedlings alongside the path... But NOW:

Big corn, big lettuce and not-very-big-at-all tomato seedling

Everything is huge. The corn is now flowering, or at least the large half is. Corn normally likes to be planted in a big enough clump to ensure good pollination. Hopefully my two slightly staggered half-clumps will be ok. The tomatoes got off to a very slow start and are only now really taking off. I'll have to work on my tomato seedling raising technique. However careful I am, they always seem to sulk for a month after I plant them out.

There's lots more happening, but that all I have time for tonight. Back soon.