Growing Your Own Vegetables: An Encyclopedia of Country Living Guide (13 page)

Plants should break ground in 7 to 10 days, but note that on average, 1 out of 4 seeds won’t germinate. Replant or transplant thinnings where germination has failed rather than waste the space. In very short season areas, start corn indoors 4 weeks early and move transplants into the garden 1 or 2 weeks after your last frost date, being careful to keep roots intact and undisturbed. Transplanting can be hard on corn; you may find it sulks for a week or more before it resumes growing.

From planting time until the corn is up at least a few inches, fend off hungry birds with shiny flash tape. Crisscrossed strings may further discourage them, or you can put up a scarecrow and find lots of reasons to be in the garden. Well-nourished plants and planting rotations will stave off the worst pest and disease cycles; hand-pick corn borers and earworms.

With a harvest of only 2 or 3 ears per stalk, there is no doubt that corn is a space, soil, and nitrogen hog, but many consider its garden-fresh sweetness to be worth it. Rotate where you grow corn from year to year and follow with a green manure or legume to rebuild the depleted soil’s fertility.

EARLY, MID-, AND LATE-SEASON CORN VARIETIES

Early corn is 53 to 68 days to maturity and can be planted when the soil temperature is around 55 to 70°F, making it a good choice where the warm season is short. And because growing slows down in the shorter days of late summer, an early variety is also the best choice for your very latest planting. Early corn grows only 4 to 6 feet high and has smallish ears. It can be planted closer together than later corns; thin to 6 inches apart.

Midseason corn is 69 to 86 days to maturity and needs a warmer soil, 60 to 80°F. Usually the longer the corn takes to mature, the bigger the ear and the more ears you get; thin to 8 inches apart.

Late-season corn is 87 to 92 days to maturity. Growing 7 to 10 feet tall, late corn has the largest ears of any of the three; thin to 12 to 18 inches apart.

Secrets of corn pollination:
Good pollination results in plump cobs filled with kernels; an ear of corn with gaps indicates kernels whose silks didn’t get pollinated. Corn pollen is carried by wind from the male tassels at the top of the plant to the female silks that extend from the juvenile ear. If corn is planted in a single long row, the pollen may blow away without touching a silk; planting in short adjacent rows, or blocks, improves pollination considerably.

All corn varieties will cross with other corn varieties and affect the quality of your harvest, due to a process called “double-fertilization” in which the pollen not only determines the future heredity of that kernel but becomes half the nature of the corn kernel that will develop from that silk. For example, if a specialty “super-sweet” variety is fertilized by an unimproved variety, the resulting ears of corn will be only half as sweet as they would have been.

To avoid this, separate planting blocks by at least 250 feet or choose corn varieties that are at least 2 weeks apart in maturity dates so that flowering won’t occur at the same time. Unbroken heavy rains during pollination can also interfere with or prevent normal fertilization.

HARVESTING:
There is one day of absolute perfection in corn ripeness. However, you can actually start harvesting and eating several days before that day and continue several days afterward, bearing in mind that underripe corn kernels are small and flavorless, whereas overripe kernels become tough and tasteless. In general, your corn will be ready 3 weeks after the tassels begin to shed pollen; careful observation is your best clue.

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Watch the silk.
Mature corn has dark-green husks and dried brown silk. Even if the ear still feels nice and plump, when the silk gets really dark the corn is in danger of being over-mature. If you think the silk looks dried enough, double-check by taking the next step.

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Observe the milk.
Pull back the husk a couple of inches to see if the kernels have filled out. Puncture a kernel with your thumbnail and assess the juices or “milk.” Clear milk indicates immature corn with undeveloped sugars; thick milk means sugars have already begun to change to starch. Some people prefer to gather ears when the milk is still thin and sweet. Some wait until the milk is white and thicker and the kernels are fuller and more mature, with a rich corn flavor.

Watch for the first ripe ears and continue to check every day or two while the harvest is on to pick the ears at their prime. The ones nearest the top of the plant generally ripen first, the lower ones later. To harvest, hold the stalk firmly with one hand as you twist and snap away the ear with the other hand. Be careful not to damage the stalk itself, because that will make it hard for the plant to finish ripening the other ears.

All fruits and vegetables taste better when garden fresh, but few are in the same class with corn in the rate of deterioration from plant to table. Once the ear is picked, its sugars immediately began to convert to starch; cool temperatures and not husking the ears until you’re ready to prepare them will slow the process, but speed is of the essence. Keep the time span from field to table as short as possible for truly sweet corn. According to garden lore, you should have a pot of water already boiling when you go out to harvest corn!

THE THREE SISTERS

Native Americans traditionally interplanted corn, beans, and squash, referring to the combination as “the three sisters.” Legend had it that the crops would support and benefit one another, resulting in a more plentiful harvest than if they were planted separately. You can replicate this naturally sustainable practice by spacing corn plants in close rows about a foot apart and planting several pole beans around each young stalk when it is about 6 inches tall. The corn provides a natural pole for the beans to climb, and the nitrogen fixed on the roots of the beans helps to replenish the soil after producing the corn. Shallow-rooted squash vines are planted in the area between the corn and beans as a living mulch to shade out weeds and maintain soil moisture. The fine spines on the squash vines also serve as a natural deterrent to predators after the corn and beans.

OTHER GRASSES AND GRAINS

Grain amaranth

Grain amaranth (
Amaranthus hypochondriacus
and
A. cruentus
) is grown for its seed, which closely resembles a cereal-type grain and can be treated as such.

Amaranths, a domesticated relative of pigweed, are frost-tender annuals. They are all broad-leafed plants, not grasses. The large plants, 5 to 8 feet tall, each produce a huge number of tiny seeds. Amaranth grain is high in protein and other nutrients and can be harvested and cooked like rice or popped like popcorn. The foliage is very nutritious—high in vitamin A, C, iron, calcium, and protein. Harvests vary widely depending on variety and growing conditions.

Native to the Americas, grain amaranth was nearly as important as corn and beans to pre-Columbian agriculture. Being very heat- and drought-tolerant, grain amaranth is a good crop for hot and dry areas and has been grown without irrigation in regions with as little as 7 to 8 inches of annual rainfall. Most grain amaranths are mature after 4 to 5 months, and the mature flower heads should be harvested by hand as they dry. Completely dry the “grain” before separating it from its chaff.

Bamboo

Bamboo is a primitive kind of grass native to tropical Asia; most species like warm, humid places and lower elevations. A beautiful ornamental perennial in the landscape, bamboo can also be a valuable food plant.

All species of bamboo have edible shoots, but some taste better than others. The best-tasting kinds are all varieties of
Phyllostachys
, a running bamboo that must be contained in the garden to restrict its spread. Bamboo grows amazingly fast when given fertile soil, warmth, and consistent watering. Each spring vigorous rhizomes, or underground stems, shoot out in all directions and for an indeterminate distance before sending up shoots to quickly colonize and overtake any adjacent land. Install a root-impenetrable barrier made of metal, concrete, or heavy-duty plastic 2 feet deep around your bamboo patch to control its spread, or plant in a large container.

The new shoot of the bamboo plant is eaten asparagus-style. Harvest enough every spring so your stand doesn’t get too crowded, but don’t take them all, as an existing grove needs new plants to stay healthy. Harvest young shoots 1 to 2 inches in diameter by cutting at ground level with pruning shears. When harvesting, be careful not to damage nearby shoots. The taller the bamboo shoots get, the less tender and edible they are.

Buckwheat

Buckwheat (
Fagopyrum esculentum
) is another exceptionally nutritious grain that is not a grass. Originally from China, it’s a member of the knotweed family and more closely related to rhubarb than any of the true cereal grains. The bush-like plants grow about 3 feet high and have heart-shaped leaves. Beekeepers value a buckwheat crop for its abundant flowers that provide a good pollen source over a very long season. The resulting dark and richly flavored buckwheat honey is a prized delicacy.

Buckwheat is also a valuable green manure crop, quickly producing a thick stand of foliage capable of shading out weeds and grasses. The good-sized plants produce a generous amount of organic matter. Its tender hollow stems are easy to till into the soil, and its extensive roots are capable of breaking up and loosening sticky, dense clay.

Buckwheat grows especially well in moist, cool climates. Because heat inhibits the seed-making part of its life cycle, harvests should be timed to follow the most intense summer heat. Unlike a stand of grass grain, which ripens all at once, buckwheat continuously blossoms and will have flower buds, green grains, and ripe seed on it at any given point after midseason. To maximize your yield, harvest late enough to get as many mature seeds as possible, but before the mature plants become brittle and begin to shatter and spill their seed on the ground. Cut, bundle, shock, and thresh as described for the grass grains.

Oats

Oats (
Avena sativa
) are easy to grow and flourish in a wide range of climates and soils as long as they get ample moisture. Hull-less oats (
Avena nuda
) are the most convenient for home gardeners to thresh and grind, although the plants shatter and spill their grain more easily in the field, have a smaller yield, and are slightly more sensitive to a late spring freeze.

Mature oats are 2 to 5 feet high depending on the variety and soil fertility, with a well-filled head containing 30 to 150 grains per stalk. Cut, sheave, and shock to thoroughly dry the grain, then thresh.

Oat straw is the most nutritious of the grass grain straws for feeding animals. Oats used to be important because they were the main grain fed to workhorses. Now the usual farmload puller eats gasoline instead of oats, and everybody’s worrying about Middle Eastern politics instead of the weather.

Quinoa

Quinoa (
Chenopodium quinoa
), closely related to lamb’s-quarters, is a nongrass grain native to high elevations in South America, where it is a diet staple that was referred to as the “mother grain” by the Incas. Quinoa’s tiny seeds are borne on dazzlingly colorful hot pink, burgundy, red, orange, yellow, white, or lime green, 4- to 6-foot plants; this is an ornamental garden standout as well as a delicious, high-protein grain.

Sow seed around spring’s last frost date and when soil moisture is still high for good germination. In a moderately fertile soil quinoa is a quick grower; the young greens may be harvested and prepared like amaranth greens. By midsummer the plants will produce a sizeable seed head filled with grain; harvest when dead ripe, and dry before threshing. Moisture may cause the seed to sprout right in the head; if rain is forecast once the seed is drying, the plants should be cut, bundled, and hung to finish under cover.