Quote:
Originally Posted by GoDawgs
I can't address the creamed corn question as I rarely make the stuff. All sweet corn grown here gets cut off the cob, tray frozen and bagged.
Most of the sweet corn is grown in traditional rows with some toying around with double rows. However I have grown an early variety called Spring Treat, popcorn and a flint corn (it was a test) in a raised bed.
The beds are 4'x18' and I make 7 circular "hills" or plantings in a bed. I put a stake in the center of the bed and the other hills are 27" apart on center going down the bed each way. Then I plant the seed in a 9" radius from the center of each circle. Seedlings are thinned to 7-8" apart around each circle. Then I mulch well once the early weeds have germinated and been lightly hoes out. It's worked pretty well, generating enough plants close enough together so that there's not a pollination problem.
This was Spring Treat:
For fertilizing I just use a small hand hoe, pull soil back next to each plant and drop some fert in there. It doesn't take too long to do the bed but I sure wouldn't do that for long rows!
Before I came up with this for the bed I played with various other methods like planting short rows across the bed or long rows running down the bed. It's problematic fertilizing and pulling soil to the plants.
If you have a spare bed and no other way to grow corn, give it a shot!
Bill, I don't understand the lowering of soil level if you grow corn in a bed. It doesn't happen here. I dig up the stalks and bang all that soil off the roots on the back of the shovel before tossing the stalks into the cart. No soil loss that way.
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Dawg you are definitely losing volume but don't see it like you would in a raised bed with sides. I have raised beds with wood sides and the lose of soil is very noticeable if you grow corn or even another heavy feeder like Brussel's Sprouts will lower the soil level. I have been gardening in raised beds with sides for over 40 years and after a few very successful beds of corn I decided it just wasn't worth the loss of volume that needed to be replaced and not only that it increased the sandiness of the soil by taking out so much organic matter. The other heavy feeder that will lower a bed is large types of okra like Cowhorn but I don't plant many plants and they are far apart so it isn't as noticeable as when growing a bed full of corn.
In our family we have always used mostly sweet corn for creamed corn. My uncle who used to plow his corn with a mule would plant between a half acre and an acre every year of sweet corn for creaming and the rest was planted in field corn for drying and feeding his animals. My mother would take all us kids to visit when the corn was ready and for a couple of days we would all shuck corn and cream it with a corn grater and my aunt and mother would blanch it, bag it and freeze it. When we got done we would take back a large ice chest full of bags of creamed corn.
I loved visiting my aunt and uncles farm except for corn creaming time.
Bill