gardens 2019: sweet corn

I always try to write a single post reviewing the year's gardens,
but it soon becomes long and unwieldy.
So this year I'm going to try writing about individual "crops."
It will be helpful to me when I'm planning the 2020 garden adventure.

First up: sweet corn!

I grew miniature corn this year.

I didn't plant miniature corn, but that's what I grew.

'Bon Jour' Early Bicolor Corn
organic seed purchased from Renee's Garden Seeds

In the Spring we had unusually hot days and unusually cold nights, so the soil was slow to warm. Corn cannot germinate well until the soil is very warm - some say 65-70F - so I held off planting as long as I dared. But because corn also needs a long season, I finally had to cross my fingers and plant, along with the pole beans which I wanted to grow along with the corn.

Even though I waited until June 22nd to plant, the corn germination was much lower than expected, which was later reflected in the incomplete pollination of the ears. The stalks grew to 5 or 6 feet, and eventually, tiny ears appeared. For a couple of weeks in September it was a treat to pick 3 or 4 little ears every couple of days, and microwave them for a quick lunch.

The ears in the picture above were the very last, and are being rationed out to the hens as a treat. They really enjoy corn on the cob! And as I pull up the stalks - the ones that aren't still entwined with pole beans - I dole them out to the goats. Everyone likes variety in their menu.

Does anyone have recommendations for a sweet corn variety that might do well for me next year? If I have room, I'll plant a larger patch. Or maybe I'll grow popcorn again, like I did in 2016. (I only "remember" the year because I searched the blog for it!) Homegrown popcorn was a fun treat in the middle of winter.

~~~~~

wordy wednesday

The weather has lightened up, and everyone is enjoying it.

It's sunny, and it's hot. But not stultifyingly humid.

And there's an occasional breeze.

The air is breathable.

Ahhhhh.

Betula had been basking in the sun, but when he saw me walking up from the garden, he got up and walked down to meet me halfway.

 LeShodu naturally assumed that I would walk to her.

She is rarely mistaken.

~~~

We had a brief but heavy rain one evening,

and the corn is higher than my knees at last:

The corn - it's organic popcorn, actually! - 

still has a long way to go.

But the summer squash is coming along:

~~~

In very "other" news, I'm in the process of switching to a new laptop. It's a necessary step - overdue, really - but now I must get it done because the tiny laptop needs to go away for repair ASAP. I've been switching over for a week now, bit by bit.

I am not going to make you look at pictures of a laptop.

Look, pumpkin leaves! Aren't they glorious?

I'll talk about the laptops though. Two big hurdles are: getting the goatcams talking to the new laptop, and finding a replacement for Picasa, which I've been happy with as an image manager (mostly) and editor (a bit), but which Google cut loose a while ago. Oh, Google. You are a blister at times.

I do so little "post-processing" of images, I have no need of PhotoShop. And I don't want my images in "the cloud" so I'm not even looking at Google's "replacement" for Picasa.

FastStone was recommended but doesn't seem to have keyword tagging. Tagging is a feature I need at this point; otherwise I will never find anything when I want it. Ideally, I need to find software that will not only offer tagging but which will read the tags on tens of thousands of images already tagged in Picasa.

What are y'all using? Any software suggestions will be much appreciated!

~~~

Hurdle 2: the goatcams are critical to my peace of mind; no exaggeration. There's just no calculating how many unnecessary trips to the barns and paddocks they've prevented, especially in the middle of the night. Nor how many times I've gone out with a flashlight because a goatcam let me know there was something genuinely amiss. They've certainly saved at least one life.

After many hair-tearing failures this week, I managed to get one of the cameras talking to the new laptop this afternoon. I have such a headache now, I'm going to rest on that one scrawny laurel til tomorrow, when I'll tackle the second camera again.

And speaking of tomorrow, it's the Giveaway Giveaway! I just discovered that I did not put a time on the random drawing, so to be fair, I will keep entries open til midnight Eastern Time on Thursday, and will draw and post the winner on Friday. That means there's still time to share, so please do...this is just a tiny giveaway, but the more people who hear about Kiva, the better our world may be :)

~~~~~

another surprise

By the way, this is the type of melon I recovered
after an unidentified critter had chewed through the stem.
The seed is from Seed Savers Exchange.
Their catalog is like...pie.

I planted many things for the first time this year, and sweetcorn is one example. It takes a lot of room (or so I thought before growing winter squash - hahahahahaha!) and it is a draw for wildlife I don't wish to encourage close to the house, including bear and raccoon. But this year, with my garden area enlarged a bit from last year, it seemed one block of corn would fit in the terrace garden with the 6' perimeter fence (as a slight discouragement to the wildlife), especially if I used the legendary "three sisters" method: planting pole beans, corn, and squash together, so the beans can grow up the corn stalks and the squash limits competition from other plants, sometimes known as "weeds."

Well, first of all, I won't do that planting again. Sisters they may well be, but if so, they seem very selfish and unkind sisters, taking every opportunity to elbow each other away from the buffet, and drag each other away from the window instead of simply sharing the view. Nope. From now on, the sisters will have their own rooms. I have enough drama with LeShodu, I don't need it from the vegetables.

The sweetcorn got a slow start (very cold wet weather), then grew quickly ("Why, you can watch the corn grow!"), then slowed right down (very hot dry weather) and finally produced small ears that didn't seem to fill out at all. I wondered if it was a lack of pollination due to the strange weather conditions, or if they hadn't received enough light. Or possibly they were exhausted from struggling to rise despite being throttled and pinned down by the beans. Oh well, it was an experiment and I was learning something. (Or re-learning something I should have known: vegetables are plants. Not "sisters." Plants. They compete to survive.)

This morning when I was doing my "Twister" routine (contorting my body as in the floor game, not emulating a tornado) in order to get through the winter squash rows, area, nation, I thought I might as well pick a tiny ear of corn and see if it would provide a clue to what had gone awry. Maybe insects had infiltrated and I would find an empty cob and a gaggle of disgusting worms? Ew.

Well, I'll be darned. Look at this:

Is that not the cutest and most perfect ear of corn you've ever seen?

It kind of reminded me of something...

I picked a few more ears.

Here's one for the knitters:

corn that makes its own short-row shaping!

I was so delighted by my surprising first corn harvest, I took lots of pictures.

This one is on the screenporch:

Then I carried the bowl outside to try different light,

because one does not wish

to do less than one's photographic best for one's sweetcorn.

Does one?

Five hens followed me hopefully, and every time I tried to set the bowl down - on a stone, on a stump, on the pedestal for the birdbath - they formed a tight circle around me and prepared to leap. I finally had to rest the bowl on an upright pallet, and snap quickly before they organized themselves to form a poultry pyramid, with the brilliant Jersey Black Giant mastermind on top.

I hope your day contains a lovely surprise.

And maybe a tasty one, as well.

~~~~~

a ramble in the gardens

I haven't written much about my gardening endeavors this year,

not because it hasn't been an daily activity for several months...

Remember my seedlings? Much bigger now!

...but because everything has been sooooo slow.

Slow to grow, slow to flower.

Until this past week, the only vegetable I harvested was kale.

Thank you, kale! You have given me hope. And food.

A few days ago, I harvested the first straightneck summer squash

from the new and heavily mulched bed near the goat barn.

At first glance, I thought the camera was over-reacting, but no:

this extreme yellow is the genuine color of the squash:

Like last year, there are little garden beds in multiple places, 

and a slightly larger garden on the edge of the Upper West Side terrace.

The Upper West Side is a goat browse area,

but a small sunny section is fenced off for the garden.

(I have plans to make it bigger next year!)

There are winter squash growing up the 6-foot perimeter fence,

and you can perhaps make out the sweet corn and pole beans in the background:

I tried the corn/beans/squash "companion planting" thing.

So far, not impressed.
It all looks more "naturally competitive" than "companionable" to me:

During Wednesday's daylong deluge, some of the corn took quite a whalloping.
And now we're having very cool weather. Like October-cool.
Will the corn manage to produce ripe ears?
It's a rollercoaster ride, this gardening thing.

And here's a high point:

The very first Thelma Sanders Sweet Potato Acorn Squash,
harvested the day after the storm!
This is one of three Sow True Seed heritage squash varieties I planted
as part of Tipper's Blind Pig and the Acorn "Squash Reporters @ Large" project.
For weeks I have been reading about other gardens and other squash,
and wondering if I would have anything to contribute before Winter.
Waiting, waiting, waiting...
Lots of plants. Lots of leaves. Lots of flowers.
Waiting, waiting, waiting...

Look, Tipper! I got one! 

(And many flowers on all three varieties. Fingers crossed!)
~~~

Meanwhile, there's one other precious harvest taking place

by the daily handful:

My lone surviving highbush blueberry
also had a slow, tough haul into Summer,
but is now doing very well indeed!
This is especially satisfying, because last year the bush was clearly
in trouble, striving to recover after a series of catastrophic events.
I did my best to help, but as you know...
well, I love plants, but I'm more useful with animals.

This blueberry bush is a survivor!

Doesn't it make your mouth water?

Mine, too!

~~~

All day long, I have thought today was Sunday.

Even when I was at the dump - which is only open on Saturday -

I told someone I'd see them "tomorrow," meaning Monday.

I wonder what day I will think it is tomorrow.

Whatever day you think it is, I hope you are having a good one!

~~~~~