The Golden Rule of Corn

I grew corn this year for the first time. Although it's maybe not the best choice for a relatively small garden, I decided that I had genetics on my side. My grandfather grew it for a living. And really, I simply love the taste of fresh sweet corn. The reason many people with small gardens choose not to grow it is because the ratio of food to growing space is very low for corn. In addition, sweet corn is relatively cheap at the market...usually around $1 for 2 organic ears. Nevertheless, I forged ahead and decided to grow corn...in the front yard. It grew quite well, I'd say.

Happy corn growing - check out the pink silks!

After picking about 2-3 ears from each of the 8 corn stalks over the last few weeks, I chopped down the plants today. My husband looked at me in dismay and said "That's all?" "Yep, that's all...that's corn," I said.

This is the first ear I picked:

Delicioso!

You may have noticed that I said 8 plants. The Golden Rule of Corn planting is that you should have at least a 4x4 foot area planted in solid corn. That's about 16 plants spaced 12" apart. This is so that there is enough pollen present to pollinate the silks. Planting only one long row is said to result in low pollination. Imagine if the predominate wind direction is perpendicular to the row...little to no pollen will fall on the silks.

For some reason, I thought that this rule really didn't apply to me and my corn. I planted 2 rows of 4 plants each. I would have planted more, but tomatoes were dominating the garden this year, so space was at a premium. As it turns out, several ears looked like this:

Notice all of the unpollinated kernels!

Next year, if I grow corn, I'll be playing by it's rules.