At least my "chick" chickens do. I was finally able to harvest a few ears of bicolor Ambrosia sweet corn from my meager, tilted corn patch in the back garden. It looks really good--and if the way the girls tore into the deformed ears they got to nosh on is any indication, they are pretty tasty as well. I'm hoping to find out for myself as soon as the couple of ears I saved for myself are done steaming on the stove.
I learned some valuable lessons from this year's endeavor in sweet corn growing.
One, rampant tunneling mole activity will cause the corn to fall over. Repeatedly. This cannot be helped, as the mole will go where he wants to go, and really, as long as he is staying out of the beets, who can complain?
Two, planting corn with pole beans is an attractive idea. Doesn't it just sound so bucolic and divinely inspired? I'm sure it is, if your corn grows to ten feet tall and has stalks made of iron. Pole bean vines are insanely strong, and drag the (already tunneled beneath) corn over sideways. The vines also wind around the developing ears, choking them off and giving what grows the appearance of mutant vegetables that may make you run in terror. It looks like someone did unauthorized genetic manipulation out there. Attack of the mutant corn babies!
Three, growing squash in the general mess is really not a good idea. I have some pumpkins and such in there. Somewhere. I think. I saw something once that appeared squash-like in the depths of leafage.
Ultimately, there comes lesson #4: Sweet corn, mutant or not, is worth the saga of growing it.
Of course, if I grow a third head after eating dinner, that might change lesson number four's perspective.
HAHAH YOU ARE SO FUNNY!!!
ReplyDeleteJust starting to read your blog. More comments to come!
I have never gotten not one piece of corn to grow here in Austin, TX.
I'm gonna try again next year.
Corn is soooo persnickity. I don't know WHY I keep growing it. Glutton for punishment? Stubborn? More than slightly garden crazed? :-D
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