So, corn. This might be my biggest failure of the year (so far at least - we still have 3 months to go!). As I posted previously, I didn't plant enough corn for the silks to be wind pollinated effectively. The plan was to get out there a couple of times a week and collect the pollen from the tassels to sprinkle on the silks. Well, I maybe did it twice. All summer. This is partly because the french round squash was so damn prolific that I couldn't really get to the corn to pollinate it. Partly cuz I'm lazy, let's be real.
Left side of the garden with epic squash, a jungle of tomatoes and both corn plantings.
So what we got was 6 or 8 ears of corn about 6 inches long and about half of them were decently pollinated - most of the kernels (at least 3/4) were plump and juicy and had great flavour. The other half were pretty pathetic. We're talking less 2/3 of the kernels were shrivelled and lame. We also had a few hilariously tiny ears - one of which was no more than an inch and a half long with about 7 formed kernels.
The first corn harvest!
The reason I'm getting a second chance for romance with hand pollination, is the corn we planted from seed has put up tassels now, and is working on silks. These plants are much more compact than the others - shorter and stockier - and put out tassels (red!) at about 3 ft high.
Emerging red corn tassels.
We pulled one of the squash plants a couple of weeks ago (powdery mildew all up in my life), so I will no longer be able to use that as an excuse. The plan now is to get a bunch of smallish paper bags and some twist ties, and just leave the damn bags tied to the corn to collect the pollen. Then, once all the silks are out, I will gently bend the stalks so the bag of pollen is right-side-up when removed, and use a paint brush to apply the pollen to the silks. This is the plan. We shall see if I stick to it :)
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