This is my corn on September 3rd:
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| You can see my beans also starting in the background, they are huge now! |
September 17th:
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| Knight/Scarecrow only tricked the birds for about 2 weeks |
September 24th:
All this fast growth sounds great but there is a downside...
Most plants can be placed in either of two categories: Slow growing but vigorous(for example a Mango tree) or fast growing but fragile ( for example CORN!!!)
So when I got home yesterday I found my beautiful corn plants looking like this:
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| NOOOOOOoooooooOOOOOOOooOOOOO!!! =( |
Turns out we had a lot of rain and wind that day, The rain water collected on the corn plants makes them heavy. It only took a few minutes of a moderately strong wind to topple my beautiful plants.
But eventually I had to dry my manly tears and get to work!
I couldn't find much information online on protecting corn from wind. At least none that was useful to me. Since most corn is grown commercially the methods used by that industry don't really translate to my small backyard operation.
So I got creative:
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| Yes that is weed-eater line |
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| A string tied from one fence to the opposite fence now holds my corn in place. |
Notice that I have to rows of corn. Each row was fitted with two strings. One string to support the base of the plant and one to support the top portion:
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| In each row, the upper string travels behind the plants while the lower string runs through the front. This method gives the plants added stability. |
I suppose support stakes could be used too. I didn't have any stakes that were tall enough so I went with my string method instead. If you do use stakes make sure to bury them on the ground early; corn doesn't respond well to root disturbance.
The point is to be creative and use what we already have whenever possible.
I have some cool projects to show you very soon, but until then...
Keep on learning!
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