Sunday morning corn festival, 2008

The 2008 harvest of sweet corn, minus the two ears already in my belly.

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Digging in...

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A couple of the ears looked like this...

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But most of the ears looked more like this.
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They were completely delicious.
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I was so thrilled to have any corn at all from my deck, it didn't really bother me they were incomplete ears. We ate them raw just as soon as they were picked. If I grow corn in a pot again, I'd do a few things differently--

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--Bag the tassels to catch pollen for later hand pollination. Tassels form about two weeks ahead of ears and silk. The leaves were just covered in pollen, long before the silk formed on the ears.

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--Grow bantam varieties so the wind can't whip them around so much (wind was a huge factor in rapid pollen loss). And move the container closer to the building.

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I probably won't grow corn like this again. But it was still a very fun thing to do.

Cornsilk extravaganza!

(Holy tamale!)

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Kindly forgive my wee obsession with corn. I've not had a lot of experience growing the stuff, city gal that I am. But look at the color of that silk. Cowabunga. It started out pale and took on this hue a day or so ago.

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So far, I have 5 of these beautiful silky bundles. I hope I don't run out of corn pollen any time soon, but it's been mighty windy in these parts. In really big cornfields that's a non-issue, but I have exactly 8 stalks, and they're all equally exposed to my often intense third-floor wind situation.

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Your corn lesson for today: Every single individual silk is connected to a single proto-kernel on the ear, tucked inside the husk. Each individual silk needs just one grain of pollen to land on it, so it can pollenate and form into a mature kernel (pollen comes from the tassels on the top of the stalks). Otherwise, the corn doesn't form properly and you'll get dwarfed, incomplete ears.

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Corn lesson over. Go do something fun and restful, it's Sunday!

The corn is preggers!

(With tasty, tasty babies)

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See them nice bulges? I count at least 5 bulges, as of today. And the new silk is forming- the little white hairs are sticking out of the joint at the leaves and stalk. I'm so excited about having corn babies I can't see straight.

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If corn has a bun in the oven, is it cornbread? Yuckyuck! Aw, stop! What am I, straight outta Hee Haw? It's also making me hum Glen Campbell songs- "Little Green Apples", if you must know. Arrghh! Make it stop!

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Apparently, this is the effect corn in the garden is having on me.

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(Full confession- I love Glen Campbell. It reminds me of being a little girl, trying to take a nap in my grandma's bedroom, while my grandpa sits in his rocking chair on his shady back porch and fiddles with his transistor radio. But please don't tell my hipster friends.)

The corn is as high as an elephant's eye

(There's a bright golden haze on the... asphalt)

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My sweet corn 'sploded this weekend. We've had a lot of rain recently, and the corn has grown a good foot in about a week. It's over 7 feet tall now, though that does include the planter. Just look at all them purty tassels. And it's not even the Fourth of July yet.

Corn, growing fast

(happy corn, and a newly opened calendula)

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I should read more about how sweet corn grows and what it likes, but I'm thinking the literature about growing it in pots is what you might call skinny. So far so good by all appearances, though.