The Size and Shape of Corn

Corn is a truly amazing annual plant. It grows at a rate which exceeds almost anything else you find in a garden, and one stock produces as much consumable corn in one season as a six or seven year old apple tree would produce.

In about a month and a half, my corn has grown from just over 12 inch stocks, to over 6 foot stocks on average. Almost every stock has tassels now and they are beginning to sprout the small buds which will become ears of corn.

Here is a picture of Coughlin and I standing in the middle of my corn rows, at the very back.


My current profile picture on facebook shows us standing further forward, which makes us show up better, but doesn't as accurately demonstrate the height and density of my corn.

Here is a picture of one of the stocks with tassels coming out.


Coughlin loves to grab plants and leaves and move them (sometimes trying to eat them as well), he's been especially fascinated with the corn stocks.

As far as my trip is concerned, it will be less than 40 hours until I depart for South Dakota. All my gear is together, I just have to pack up on Thursday afternoon and lay my clothes out for the next morning.

I'm glad that I've been riding to the Bainbridge Island ferry this week to work a different shift, it's given me a chance to wear in my tires. The newer rubber is a little more slick, but I truly put them to the test yesterday while making my way off the island. Just after the day road stoplight someone in a large pickup who was turning left (into my lane) from an intersection, crawled out into the opposite lane as I approached. I looked to him to make sure he wasn't going to run me over and as I turned back ahead I saw that a box truck which was also turning left into my lane, had pulled into the middle of the road (not a turn lane) to attempt to find a spot to merge with the traffic, the large pickup was apparently planning to muscle their own way into traffic around the box truck. If this weren't enough, as I looked up the road, I found that an idiot in a Kia Sorrento two cars in front of me had stopped abruptly to let the Box truck into traffic.

The small pickup between myself and the Sorrento therefore had to stop abruptly and I locked up both wheels for a moment trying to stop. I eased of the brake and rolled forward at a now slow pace, and we all began moving again.

I'll be very happy whenI'm out on the open freeway, far away from assholes who cannot drive. Of course I'll see some traffic around the urban areas I pass through, but on this route, those will be few and far between.

In any case, I feel well prepared for my trip.

Free Retaining Walls and Plants on Clearance

We were at Wal-Mart on Sunday and I checked out the garden area to see if there were any vegetable plants on clearance. It's late in the season to be starting anything, but they had a surprising amount of plants available, many of which should be capable of maturing in time.

To be specific I purchased two pumpkin plants and two cucumbers, since the rows I tried to grow my pumpkin and cucumber seeds in this year were too cold and dark. I also bought a pack of six heads of red lettuce and two red bell peppers which both have a very short 30 day average maturity.

I immediately planted the cucumbers in the end of my row of beans since there was a two foot, space where the beans didn't manage to sprout up. This was also the easiest place to plant them, since I already made a small fence-trellis for the beans to grow on. The rest of the plants would not be so easy.

I knew that the two rows I had already tilled in the spring, but couldn't get any growth in, were not going to work, especially since there isn't much time left before fall (I'll need all the sun I can get). Expanding isn't terribly difficult since I have a tiller now, it would just be a matter of tilling in another section, that is, if it weren't for the invisible fence wire that was buried close to the garden.

It has been about a year and a half since we finished burying the invisible fence wire to keep Abby from going on adventures outside the yard, so the exact location was overgrown and very hard to see but I knew a few locations where the line would be and used those points as a starting reference. I used a small spade, and dug to expose the wire at about three foot intervals. It was only one or two inches under ground in most places, and the soil was dry, so it was fairly easy to locate at first. After making five or six marks, I was directly in front of the garden, where I needed to Till, and decided that I would have to move the line (at least eventually). I pulled up on the line gently in one of the exposed locations to see if it would budge at all to decide how difficult extraction would be and it snapped. This was no big surprise, since it was 18 gauge wire with a very thin rubber coating, but it meant that I had no choice but to lay all new wire in a new path now.

A few weekends ago, I found someone who was giving away telephone poles on Craigslist. They were in Belfair, and buy the time they got back to me and we could meet up on a weekend, they only had a few good poles left. I brought my saw and cut up 5 six foot lengths of pole. My intention all along was to make a small retaining wall about ten feet from the garden, so that I could expand my garden next year, and make my upper lawn healthier in the process. Of course, to keep Abby from digging in the fresh dirt of the garden, I was going to have to move the invisible fence wire anyway, I just didn't think I would have to do it so soon.

I got out a large digging spade and made a trench exactly where I wanted the lenghts of pole to be, then I tapped into the wire for the invisible fence on either side, at it's previous locations, spliced the wires and with a light covering of dirt, I rolled the pole sections into the trench. This made covering the wire very easy, and if I need to access it in the future, it should be much easier to locate as well.


You can't see it in the picture, but on the ends of the wall, I've left enough room for me to create a slope and fit the riding mower through. Before the end of the summer, I would like to till up the entire lower area, and shovel the excess dirt into the upper area. Depending on how much I get, I may need to make a trip out to pick up some topsoil so that I can raise the level all the way to the tops of the pole sections. Leveling out the lawn should help keep it healthier and greener for more of the year.

With the wall finished and the invisible fence active again, I was able to till in the addition to my garden. The soil I tilled up was fairly rich from some composting I did on or near it last summer, but it's not quite as good as the soil in my original garden space this year.

I planted the pumpkins on the far left, where I can allow them to grow out and over some lawn without interfering with the other vegetables.


I put the peppers in the middle.


And the lettuce took up the last three rows on the right.


This is a side view of the entire new section I tilled in, where the invisible fence used to be buried.


As you can see my corn is getting very tall. The tallest stocks are as tall as I am and most of the stocks are starting to sprout their tassels, which means that ears of corn are not far away now.


In a previous blog I mentioned some nectarine trees I planned to plant, but I called them tangerines. It's much more likely that I'll get a nectarine tree to bear fruit than a tangerine, but here is a picture of one of the two nectarine trees I planted on Sunday.


One is planted in the upper portion of the backyard, near the fence, the other is in the front yard between my driveway and the picket fence. Both of the trees are taking to the new-found space very well.

More Talk About Plants

One of my fellow commuters, who lives a couple of miles away, gave me two tangerine trees yesterday. He had grown them from seeds that sprouted in his compost pile, but decided that he didn't have the space for them in his back yard.

Since I have plenty of space in my yard, with lots of sun exposure, I picked them up. It seems like they should be able to bear fruit here at least every few years after maturity, but even if they don't, they are neat looking trees which I'll enjoy having around.

My favorite thing about fruit trees is what little effort they require to maintain and how much fruit they can produce with that little bit of effort; for those reasons, I like vines a lot too. My grape vine is very healthy this year since I cleared out the blackberry bushes which it had been competing with for several years prior. This year it grew up into the branches of a large old maple that had a low hanging bough nearby. Grape vines are impressively tenacious, this one managed to take over a 10x10 section of this bough with only three vines leading up into the branches.

I don't want the vine to waste it's nutrients producing fruit I can't reach, and I don't want it killing the maple tree, so I cut the three vines leading up to the maple. Over the weekend I noticed more buds shooting out of the remaining lower section. Next spring I hope to cut the grape vine all the way back so that I can repair the fencing it has overgrown, take out the remaining blackberry bushes that are competing with it and allow it to grow back with a fresh start.

You can see the healthy, happy grape vine behind me in the picture below showing my happy, healthy corn.



This picture was taken on Friday, but over the warm weekend, the largest corn stalks have actually grown to chest high on me. This year has been unbelievably good for corn in Washington.

For those who don't know already, all of the large trees with pretty blue sky behind them are located on my acre. Those trees in particular are at the bottom of the ravine, where the creek crosses through the corner of my woods. Right behind the grape vine, however, is a shallow slope without any trees on it, I'm thinking about putting in a chicken pen in this location when I finally get chickens. The area in question is full of stinging neddles during the summer, and chickens are particularly good at clearing out small vegetation.

Here is a picture of my beets, just before I pulled the weeds around them. Since this is the first year I've had my garden in this area, weeds come up frequently, hopefully this will slow down next year as I continuously till the area.


Here are my carrots, which are doing particularly well.


And these are my beans so far. They are in the shadiest spot, so they aren't growing as quickly, but they generally have a long season, so they should still produce something for me before it's over.


My last two rows, which included cucumbers, onions, sunflowers and pumpkins have not produced anything promising. The spot was just too shady to get good results. Next year, I'll move my garden over and start with the row my beans are in, since that seems to be the last viable row for growing.

On a side note, my motorcycle is at Burton's now getting new tires put on. I went with a Kenda 671 for the rear and a Kenda 657 for the front tire. They are similar models, but Kenda didn't make any lines which had both tire sizes I needed. I had Kenda tires on my first motorcycle and they are pretty good. They gave me no problems, in fact, one of them picked up a nail once that was bent at a perfect 90 degree angle. It went through one of the treads perfectly, without rupturing the tire.

Since the old tires are still in decent shape, I'll keep them around in case I have any problems down the road and need a tire that's good for a couple thousand miles.

I'll pick up the V-Star on Saturday, then it will be time to check everything thoroughly to make sure it's ready for the trip, now only three weeks away.

Ideal Spring: The Gamble of Vegetables in Washington

As previously stated, I managed to pull together a Garden this year, which I haven't been able to do for several years.

I tilled in my compost and planted all of my seeds in the same day, the first weekend after the last frosty morning. There is a calculated risk involved with planting so close to the frost, but most seeds won't be damaged by freezing temperatures, you only have to worry about that after the sprouts actually come up.

Usually to avoid this risk, but still get your garden started in time, you can sprout your vegetables indoors, or in a greenhouse. However, the potential for shock when you transplant your sprouts is high, so it's imperative that you keep the same soil and light conditions in both your sprouting location inside and the future home outside. Some vegetables, such as corn, are temperamental, even with very careful transplants. Others like beans will thrive no matter what condition changes you put them through.

Anyway, this May turned out to be perfect for sprouting seeds, the morning frost disappeared instantly, as it usually does in Western Washington, and we experienced record rainfall in the first two weeks of May. In order to sprout, most seeds need even temperatures above 50 degrees and a lot of moisture. Normally, the moisture of the soil when sprouting occurs is so high that an adult plant of the same species would be unable to survive. After the rain, we had two very warm weeks, with overcast nights, keeping the temperature higher. By Memorial Day, all of my corn, beans, cucumbers and onions had sprouted. Two weeks later, the beets and cucumbers came up too. I haven't seen any pumpkin sprouts yet, and I don't know if I ever will, because the last row, in which I placed the pumpkins, is just a little too shady.

Next year I plan to expand my garden and move it over a few rows to increase the amount of sun I can absorb.

I placed the three rows of corn on the side of the garden that receives the most sun, since corn thrives on bright, hot days, as long as it has an ample water supply. There is a saying to help you track the progress of your corn which goes "Knee High by the Fourth of July" of course, meaning that if your stocks are knee high before the beginning of July, they should mature in time to provide a good crop in the fall. If you don't reach that goal, all is not lost, but you probably won't get much produce before it is too cold in the fall.

A clear indicator of how unusually good our growing season has been this year, is that most of my corn stocks reached knee height in early June, and are continuing to grow. If the moderately warm weather can team up with a few good rainstorms, I hope to be able to get a couple of harvests in before it's too late.

The next row is cut in half, filled with beets and carrots, being tubers, they also like the light and heat. The carrots are doing very well, and the beats are coming along at a fair pace. You can't see the beets in this picture because they are beyond the two rocks at the end of my carrot row.

After that I have my cucumbers and beans, which prefer to have a little cool shade. They all sprouted very quickly, but have not been very fast to grow. I put up some wire fencing to use as a trellis to keep them from trying to take over the whole garden at ground level. The cucumbers are hard to see because they don't start out as leafy as the beans do, so they are currently just leafless stocks, sticking out of the ground.

In addition to the vegetable gardening, I've been sprouting apple trees since sometime last year. I love gala apples (but only before they turn pithy), so I've been germinating and growing their seeds. My yard is more than large enough to hold a large orchard, so I would like to get a few more fruit trees. Not only do they provide fruit, but they provide shade for the grass to grow in and fertilizer, both from the leftover fruit and from the droppings left by the nearby bird population.

Last year I was able to get two prominent seedlings. I placed the larger of the two in the back yard near the garden, and have planted the smaller tree in the front. I have them both protected by tomato cages right now to prevent any accidental damage while they are still in their first year. I have two first year seedlings that I sprouted last winter which I hope to be able to plant next year and I already have a batch of new seeds germinating for next year. If I can pull it off, I'd like to have several in my front yard, because the direct sunlight tends to bake the grass unless I water it a lot. Since I hate to waste potable water on something as vane as a green lawn (as much as I like having a beautiful green lawn) I'd rather avoid doing that, so growing some fruit bearing trees is an ideal way to improve the whole situation.

Since taking this picture, this larger seedling is almost to the top of the pictured tomato cage.

As part of clearing out my garden, I was able to take out a majority of the blackberry bushes that had overgrown that section of my yard. In doing this, I also uncovered the grape vine shown behind me in the first picture. Last year the vine produced a lot of grapes, but because it was so overgrown by blackberry bushes, it did not get enough light to ripen. I'm hoping that the new-found freedom will give it enough light to ripen this year.

Next year I plan to cut it all the way back and tie it up to help it out some more and finish off the last of the blackberries.

For anyone who who hasn't had a garden before, but is thinking about starting one, I know how daunting it seems, but let me assure you that after the initial set up, the two or three hours per week that you give to your garden will yield you the best fruits and vegetables you will have in your life. If I had the time, I would till up most of my backyard just so that I could consume and share more of the fruits of my own labor.