How Backyard Gardeners Can Grow Their Own Corn

We're at our Ramona farm talking CORN!

Growing up in Kansas, I've always been around corn. It's grown abundantly there and is generally known to be a staple in larger farming operations. What about growing corn as the average backyard gardener, though?

In my opinion, corn is often overlooked by gardeners. You can definitely grow small patches of corn in your yard with a space of even just several square feet. Homegrown corn is delicious, though, so you might find yourself making more room for this crop.

The key with corn is planting enough of it. This isn't something you plant sporadically throughout your yard. You want to have a block or circle and generally about six inches apart. You can see I have some just a couple of inches apart, but I'm going to leave them. The pollen needs to be able to get from one stalk to another in order to produce ears of corn.

The wind is your key pollinator. If you open up your ear of corn and see missing spots, that's because those kernels did not get pollinated. Now that this corn is in the ground, I don't really need to do much. I'll fertilize because we are still building the soil health, and corn is a heavy feeder. Otherwise, you can sit back and watch it grow.

Harvesting is important especially because most varieties don't have a super long shelf life. That means you want to pick your ears at the optimal time. Peel back some of the leaves and pierce a kernel. If it excretes a white, milky liquid, then you're all set to harvest! After that, harvest as soon as you can.

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[rindaintheraw]

Love the encouragement is best had and I love the male flying on the striking part when mature and getting the whe come coated!

[bbingtube]

The economy of scale in seed vending 🤯

[kirameki]

My mom loves corn so much i really want to try and grow some for her even though I dont have a large dedicated garden space yet. I have space, but not enough tiled/prepped. If I used properly spaced grow bags, what size bags would you recommend?

[trentmiller]

What is the brand of overalls? My wife would love those.

[melissabean]

Your garden looks great. My question is can I still water the corn regular instead from drip

[jenniferwalls]

Am I supposed to plant the corn in the trench or next to it?

[jeremyi]

How often should you be watering growing corn?

[makaylaforbes]

A question: some say sweet corn cant be popped. Is this true? I want to grow enough to freeze kernels, but also enough to pop

[niks.]

Im trying to grow spinach it gets tall and breaks any advise

[joemaliancitizen]

What’s the spacing rate between rows and seeding rate ? I haven’t seen corn being seeded and planted in the specific way you did it and it looks interesting

[ericlangley]

What if you don’t have the land for it? 😢

[ZeginMakesMusic]

Sorry to break this to you, But that is not a small cornfield. The land you are referring to as "small" costs about 100k in every state except Kentucky. My small garden is 3x8. Do the same rules apply?

[magnus]

You can grow a few 🌽 as long as you're willing to hand pollinate. Which is super easy with corn.

[FRAGGARED]

I have trouble trusting a farmer with bare soil

[Mushubushu]

I want to grow corn BUT I don’t have a lot of space

Sad 😞