Growing Vegetables

 

When spacing your corn you need to go for the max­imum return from any given area - which doesn’t mean the largest possi­ble ears or the greatest possible num­ber of ears, but the best combination of the two.

The best way to reach the desired result is to experi­ment a little with different spacing under your own conditions, and see what works best for you. Different varieties behave differ­ently, and  the same variety be­haves differently in different years and in different locations.

Plant the same variety in the same place every year. If you return all the corn residues to the soil, and otherwise keep improving it, you will soon be able to determine maximum and min­imum limits of spacing that are accu­rate enough for practical purposes. I think you will find, too, that the dis­tance between plants in the rows should be the same as that between one row and the next.

If you think you have too little garden space in which to grow corn, try growing it outside your garden area. As little as a square foot of space in almost any sunny spot will grow at least four good ears of corn.

All you have to do is to press a kernel of seed corn into the soil at each corner of a one-foot square wherever you can fit it.

any variety of corn grown at home is far superior to any other, or even the same variety grown elsewhere.

• the earliest varieties are inferior in flavor to the later ones, for the early types are bred to produce crops under adverse conditions, with quality as a lesser consideration.
• varieties developed for com­mercial growers tend to stress disease resistance, shipping suitability, and uniformity of growth, maturing and appearance at the expense of highest quality. Commercial varieties may nevertheless be suitable for a home gardener whose soil is not yet devel­oped to the point of insuring resis­tance to diseases and pests for his crops.
• many beginners plant “midget” corn under the assumption that it saves space. The only space saved is in the verti­cal direction where there is ample room for any corn to grow. Such little ground space as can possibly be saved is more than outweighed by the sub­stantial loss of volume in the harvest. If you really prefer the taste of midget corn, this is the kind to grow. But don’t grow it because you think you haven’t got enough space to grow Full size corn.

it is possible to pre­serve the sweetness of corn for periods of several hours or even an entire day. Contrary to popular belief, sweet corn deteriorates more rapidly when unhusked than it does with the husks removed. The husking should be done in the garden so as each ear is picked, the husks and silk can be returned to the soil or com­post heap right then and there.

Besides retaining freshness, this method of harvesting permits the you to inspect each ear at close range, and to discard any that fall short of quality standards. Ears brought to the kitchen, but not cooked immediately, should go into the refrigerator. There, the cold temperature will slow down the pro­cess that results in loss of flavor for up to 24 hours.

Home grown corn will be far superior to any you can buy, even if it is not eaten until the next day. By following the rule that all corn harvested goes immedi­ately into either boiling water or the refrigerator, you can count on eating the best corn that you can grow.