Saturday, May 15, 2021

May 15: Corn and cabbage

 May 15 is a critical date for me as a gardener in Eaton County, Michigan.

May 15 is my target date for planting my "winter cabbage" and my ornamental corn.

One of the nice things about ornamental corn is you can save your own seeds and create a blend that you like.

Corwin Davis, a market gardener from Bellevue Michigan once advised me that the corn that sold like hot-cakes had twice as much yellow as white, twice as much white as red and twice as much red as blue.


The striped pattern on the kernels of the left-most ear is striking and the ear on the right seemed almost like translucent glass when first harvested.

The ear on the left was enormous.

A close-up of one of the ears. The kernels remind me of the candy-corn we got at Halloween.

Hmmm! A big miss on the 65% yellow, 20% white, 10% red and 5% blue.

From a different angle. These are the tip-ends. One notable thing is that all of my seed sources (except the enormous ear, third from left) filled out to the tip very, very well.

Five, 60' rows of corn

Oh, and I did get the Deadon cabbage seeds planted today.

6 comments:

  1. Is that corn eatable? I see Johnny's is out of that cabbage. You must be a trend setter. --ken

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    Replies
    1. I have eaten it. It makes fine corn-bread and cornmeal mush. As roasters, they are chewy and filling...but not sweet.

      Delete
  2. ERJ left you a proof note on Retribution. You no doubt missed it because I was trying to be clever

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank-you, sir.

      I saw that on my phone earlier. You know the drill. Work a few hours, cup of coffee. Work a few hours, coffee and a quick bite to eat. Work a few hours.... Sit in the recliner. Wake up after dark.

      Thanks for the correction.

      Delete
  3. Very nice, and we don't see much 'ornamental' corn down this way.

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    Replies
    1. It is a niche product, to be sure. Normal corn is about maximizing production per acre. Ornamental corn is about a pretty ear of corn and maximizing size per cob. That means the ornamental corn gets planted at a lot fewer plants per acre. Also, I don't know of any clones that are Round-up Ready or have the GM disease and insect resistance packages.

      I do it because it is fun. I never know what I am going to get.

      Delete

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