What you need to know about planting corn in the garden

Now is the time to start planting corn. Unlike fruit trees, however, where an orchard with more than one variety of apple, avocado, or apricot tree will result in larger harvests than if only one variety is planted, it is not a good idea to plant two different corn varieties that ripen at the same time. It so happens that when two different corn varieties pollinate one another, the resulting kernels are starchy with a bland, insipid taste.

What corn plants share with fruit trees is a need for cross-pollination even if, in the case of corn, this is facilitated by the wind. For this reason, it is advisable to plant at least four rows of corn so that the wind, regardless of which direction it blows, will pollinate the plants. With fewer rows, pollination may be less than 100% and some ears will be less than full. Although corn is self-fertile, in small backyard plantings less than 5% of the kernels on any corn plant result from self-pollination, while the rest are the result of pollen that comes from another plant.

You can enjoy corn throughout summer and fall by planting early, mid-season, and late varieties now. While the earliest varieties will produce just one ear per plant, later varieties will often yield two ears, especially when spacing is 12 inches or more, although you can plant as close as eight inches between plants. As long as the pollination periods of the various varieties do not overlap, there is no danger of producing inferior kernels. To ensure pollination, however, especially if you plant in an enclosed area where not much wind blows, or if only a couple dozen plants are involved, you should probably hand pollinate, too. Each corn plant has both male flowers (tassels) and female flowers (silks) but they are separated on the plant, with the tassels sprouting at the top. In order to hand-pollinate, cut off the tassels when they begin to shed pollen, which you then dust onto the silks.

Corn appreciates good soil drainage and is a heavy feeder. Layer two inches of finished compost, whether you make it yourself or buy it by the bag (a product such as Kellogg’s Amend is perfect for this) on the soil surface and work it into a depth equal to the length of your shovel blade, around six to eight inches. Mix in bone meal and other organic fertilizer, following instructions on the bag(s). After planting, apply two to three inches of mulch to the soil surface. It could take the form of compost, straw, shredded newspaper, or a variety of other decomposing organic materials. Fertilize topically with more finished compost or a product recommended for vegetable crops when your plants reach 16 inches in height and again when they reach 36 inches.

Just as wild mustard bears only the most remote resemblance to broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, and kohlrabi, crops that were derived from it with the help of intensive breeding and hybridization over hundreds if not thousands of years, teosinte, a wild and barely edible grass, was the ancestor of corn. Teosinte “ears” are only an inch long and contain a dozen tiny kernels enclosed in pods. From this unpromising, barely edible specimen, modern corn was born.

Although the first crude corn crops, which took four months or longer to ripen, were grown around 9,000 years ago in their tropical habitat of Central America and southern Mexico, it took almost 8,000 years for corn to reach Indigenous tribes of the Southwest, and another thousand years until corn was being grown by tribes in the Mississippi Valley and the Southeast. Around 100 B.C., corn reached New England tribes through trade with these tribes.

The New England tribes were eager to develop quick ripening varieties that would be suitable for their shorter growing season. To this end, they planted seed (kernels) from ears that were the first to ripen on selected corn plants, located on the lowest part of the stalks in question. By repeating this process consistently over many generations of plants, varieties with quicker ripening times were developed. Today, through a continuation of this breeding method, sweet corn varieties are now available that are ready to be picked as soon as two months after planting their seeds.

The English-speaking arrivals at Plymouth labeled the staple crop they saw for the first time “corn” since the word “corn,” derived from the word “grain,” had long been used in England as a generic term for cereal crops. When the first Thanksgiving feast took place in 1621, the pioneers at Plymouth were beneficiaries of hundreds of years of corn improvement. The corn prepared for that feast would have been flint corn, the multi-colored corn whose kernels are hard as stone. Those kernels would probably have been made into a dish known as hominy, although flint corn is appropriate for popcorn, too.

Sweet corn is the result of a mutation of field corn and its existence was first documented in the 18th century. It was cultivated in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York by Iroquois tribes. It was red in color and the cobs, after the kernels were eaten, would stain linen tablecloths and napkins that they touched.

To quicken the ripening process, you can copy the Iroquois formula for success, planting the famous three sisters – corn, beans, and squash – together. The nitrate produced by the leguminous beans will accelerate the maturation process of the corn. Although beans that vine are traditionally planted with corn, whose stalks serve as supports for the climbing beans, keep in mind that bush beans, should you plant your corn later in the season, are better adapted to summer growing than the vining types. In addition to the crop that squash will yield, the trailing vegetation of this plant will serve as a living mulch, reducing both evaporation from the soil surface and irrigation frequency.

Years ago, I interviewed the actor Eddie Albert who grew corn in his front yard in Pacific Palisades. He was something of a corn fanatic and would plant corn successively from early spring to mid-summer, harvesting late into the fall. He emphasized the importance of cooking corn the moment it was harvested and would even have water boiling on the stove so that no time elapsed between picking and dropping the ears in the pot. If you can’t eat it right away, put corn in the refrigerator but don’t remove husks until you are ready to cook it.

Although corn needs heat to develop properly, plants can be stressed in extremely hot weather, making them more susceptible to corn smut, a debilitating fungus that appears as swollen blue-gray growths upon the developing ears. In Mexico, however, this fungus is consumed as a delicacy in some locales and ears infected with it fetch a higher price than those that are fungus free. Proper mulching and watering practices, such as root-directed drip irrigation and relieving water stress, are the pest preventive action where corn smut is concerned. Corn earworms are a common larval pest with a prevention program that prescribes application of five drops of mineral oil on silk tassels — of developing ears — as soon as they turn brown.  As for corn borer larvae, attracting beneficial insects, spiders and birds can control their proliferation.

A bacterial biological control agent known as Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis) may also be sprayed as a contact control measure on larvae (caterpillars) of every kind, including corn earworms and borers. Certain corn varieties have had their DNA modified to include the gene from Bt that is toxic to corn borers. If a borer starts feeding on this corn, it quickly desists and dies shortly thereafter.

If your experience growing corn has been a positive one, please email me the formula for your success so that I can share it with readers of this column.

Please send questions, comments, and photos to Joshua@perfectplants.com. Access photos of plants and flowers on Instagram via thesmartergardener1.

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