Introduction
When you venture into growing corn, you’re not only growing something delicious for you and your family, but you become a part of a tradition that dates back several thousand years. Whether you live on the American continent or anywhere else in the world, you may be asking yourself if your location is suitable for growing corn.
Corn can be grown in a wide variety of climates, altitudes, and locations as long as the weather is sufficiently warm and sunny in the Summer. A good indicator of whether you can grow corn at home is if there’s corn or wheat plantation in your general region. It’s important to pick the right location within your yard to be successful.
Soil and Location
To thrive corn does require a certain soil composition most plant nutrients are already in the soil and corn needs rain or watering to mature.
Loose loamy soil is best for growing corn. It should be well-drained so that the water gets away from the roots. Mulch or Pea Straw can be used to retain moisture in the soil and to keep the baby plants warm as they germinate.
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Given the right conditions, the plant can grow up to 10 feet high, and the corn needs warmth from the sun to ripen. As it ripens long furry stems called silks emerge towards the end of the ear. At the end is a carpel that develops into a corn kernel when fertilized by pollen.
Corn is a plant that loves the warmth and the seeds won’t germinate until the soil is warm. Try the following corn types in your garden.
- Sweet corn honey-sweet, a very sweet variety of corn.
- Sweet corn early chief produces large cobs
- Sweet corn sun and snow produce bi-colored cobs that are very sweet, children love them.
Your corn will only grow with enough pollination, so plant in blocks rather than single rows to encourage cross-pollination.
Types of Climate for Growing Corn
Most climates are suitable for growing corn and from mid to late spring, once there is no danger of frosts, corn can be planted.
Corn can be grown in high altitudes, as long as the sun can reach the plants. Most corn will take 12-14 weeks to mature.
It is recommended to sow two seeds into one hole about 12-16 inches (30-40 cm) apart. Water in well and every week feed with a liquid fertilizer.
Most plants will bare two edible cobs when ripe. some of the new hybrids will produce more. In this other article, I prepared a table that shows how to calculate how much corn you need to plant to cover your needs.
Location in the Garden
A good-sized corner of the garden with full sun is required to grow your corn. The garden shop recommends that you enrich the soil with an organic soil improver before you plant the seeds.
Growing two types of corn at once is a good use of the space, and sweet corn sun and snow, with sweet corn honey-sweet, grow well together and will mature at about the same time.
The longer the corn cob is left to mature, the tougher it becomes, so pick it early and you can eat it without cooking the cob.
Can Corn Grow in the Wild or Does it Require Cultivation?
Corn can grow naturally in the wild and it reproduces every year as it randomly selects half the genes from a plant to form the next generation of corn, and this can take place without intervention. Since the conditions are not kept artificially optimal, corn grown in the wild isn’t as abundant and tasty as cultivated corn.
For desirable traits of the plant to be passed on like high yield, human intervention is required, and selective cropping was used to develop hybrid corn that is better able to withstand disease and pest attacks. Certain varieties of corn have been produced and have many ears, like the baby corn used in Asian foods.
With modern corn and maize, human intervention is required for healthy propagation. In ancient times the crop naturally propagated, but now it has evolved into a variety with a different lineage.
A 2002 study showed that all corn came from a single domestication in Mexico about 9,000 years ago. and was dispersed in lower central America, and all modern corn evolved from that time. The ancient plants were very hardy, growing in all conditions, and were quite small in comparison to the plants of today.
One of the ancient corns is Indian -corn a type of maize that was the main food of Indigenous American Indians. The word maize is used in formal scientific research in English-speaking countries. Corn is grown in nearly every country of the world.
Resilient Corn Varieties
If you want to maximize your chances of success as a budding gardener, especially if your climate conditions may not be optimal, you may be looking for more resilient corn varieties.
Golden Bantum
This is a traditional old sweet corn with real flavor that dates from the early 1900s.
Stowell’s Evergreen
This is a white type of sweetcorn developed by Nathanial Stowell in 1848, is a strong disease-resistant sweet corn.
Oaxacan Green Dent
This is an ancient type of corn of the Zapotec people, Mexico. Produces 10-inch ears of emerald-green corn, which can be used in Polenta and is highly drought resistant.
Mandan Bride
This is a multicolored corn variety that produces a mixture of flour and flint kernels on every ear. Has a great flavor.
Bloody Butcher
This variety was developed in 1845 in Virginia, and it will produce six 12 inch ears on stalks that can reach as high as 12 feet. It is not sweet to taste.
All these varieties are strong and relatively disease resistant and can be grown by the home gardener.
Conclusion
Corn has many advantages over wheat and barley, it yields about 2 and a half times the food energy per unit, and better still can be harvested for successive years from the same plot of land.
When it grew in the wild, this would have been a great advantage to primitive people, and its yield is still an advantage today, due to its ability to grow nearly anywhere and feed everyone.
