Corn in abundance!!!

Jul 03, 2011

This is the first year I have a successful corn harvesting. I had some issues at first with deer, but I fixed that with netting fence around the back of the cornfield. We have a solar unit that we bought from Australia that puts out a high pitch (utrasonic waves) to deter animals from entering the garden area. Only they can hear the sound.I usually grow everything organic. I planted my corn in 4 rows around 20 feet in good soil. I put it some 10 10 10 this year and spread straw all around the corn after it came up where I could see it. I just hoed around it until then. Then after 2 weeks I planted 2 more rows. That was in April, and July 1 Yesterday, I harvested about 100 ears. What I noticed was there were no worms or bugs in the corn. I usually have some. Then I remembered when they were getting ready to form the ears, I sprayed on the ground a mixture of 2 Tbls. Dawn dishwashing liquid to a gallon of water all around the corn. I even sprayed some on top of the corn. I thinking that stopped the worms from crawling up the stalks and then again from entering the husks. I still have a lot to harvest, but I am so thankful for the harvest. I put up 9 quarts and we have had corn 3 nights a week. Also a great recipe for herbed butter is this. Chop up a bunch of fresh parsley and basil and garlic, and add to butter in small pot and cook on low until flavors blend and butter melts. Then brush on corn and Wha La. You will love this. Thanks for letting me share.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR, aphilbeck8

We live on 15 acres of cleared land. We have about an 1 acre vegetable garden and a 50 foot greenhouse. I love canning vegetables! I make everything with fresh tomatoes like pizza sauce, tomato...

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aphilbeck8

Fri, 07/08/2011 - 02:57

Coleman sells an ultrasonic unit that deters insects from garden. We got our unit from Australia who has a big problem with kangaroo. The website is Shuroo.com. They might have some links to other products which might help you. There is also some good companion planting that works for insects on vegetables. I don't have a big problem with insects because of that. There is a great book on companion planting call The Vegetables Gardeners bible, by Edward Smith. Did you know just planting basil near tomatoes makes them taste better. I have marigolds in my garden with helps with insects too. Check it out, and I hope this helps. Im making salsa today and canning enough to last the winter. My peppers and tomatoes are hoppin.

Jessica Still

Fri, 07/08/2011 - 11:53

I'm planting Sweet & Fino Verde Basil today to grow with tomatoes ... love the aroma of Marigolds in the garden, from tallest to shortest. Here in zone 4 I've never had problems with insects that required more than a water-spray or once-in-a-while relocating hornworms when I had a full tomato house, since they morph into butterflies. Joel & I talked about this once on KGI - I relocated the few hornworms to another Solanacae-family ornamental vine in the hedge border. I'd be interested to hear how big your tomato & pepper garden is & in what climate? Which varieties do you prefer for your winter Salsa?

aphilbeck8

Fri, 07/08/2011 - 12:38

Romas all the way for salsa, I grow different kinds of chile peppers and of course jalepeno and banana too. I plant about 20 sometimes more of the jalepeno plants (everything by seed) because jalepenos I put near my bulbs where moles are and the bulb is protected. I cut them in half and plunge down in the ground around the bulbs. It works great. I live in Virginia (central). Mild temps usually. One of the best recipes for canning salsa is on pickyourown.org. Tried and true salsa with fresh cilantro. This is the first year I did a huge herb bed outside. I love to cook with fresh vegetables and herbs. Its a passion of mine for everyone to grow something. Even people with no windows in their house can grow herbs at least. They have great grow lights and lights that have daylight built in them. I start my seeds for tomatoes and peppers inside the first part of February. We have a 50 foot greenhouse too. That comes in handy. I hope I didn't rattle on too much. Ann

Jessica Still

Fri, 07/08/2011 - 17:13

That tip alone should put you in the KGI hall of fame! Here in the mountains of central idaho we have beautiful country land where voles are so rampant above & below ground that they have motivated people to move back to town & civilized amenities - such as bulbs in the garden! or even a food garden! We put up hawk boxes with specs from the university, but never thought of Jalapenos. :-) Thanks for the tried & true salsa recipe pointer - the friend whose garden I am helping install wants to preserve some of her tomatoes & I just planted a lot of Cilantro. What do you grow within a 50' greenhouse? How do you use the space? When I lived in Taos, NM, I met a family whose main food garden was within a 60'x40' greenhouse. They all gardened there together - four children - on top of a dry, sunny, windy hill, climate about zone 5 with snow in winter. Sooo nice.

aphilbeck8

Fri, 07/08/2011 - 17:53

We have a huge heater in our greenhouse, but it gets too expensive to run it in Jan and Feb. So we don't use it then. We grow mostly tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers in it. A lot of seeds get started there as well. Oh and the jalapenos work so well. I wish I could add pics of some of my flowering bulbs. I am such a vegetable gardener that I don't have time for my flowers, so I rely on my bulbs to come up year after year, ya know what I mean. LOL

Jessica Still

Sat, 07/09/2011 - 18:50

This is a photo I sometimes put on my laptop screen when I am working at this alpen-glow time of day. It'sTulip Skies, by Rick Lundh, in honor of your bulb photos ... I have made my way through the process a few times before with the help of David Kelley's notes over in the Photography Group. So this photo - with some experiments - took me about 9 minutes to remember how & do it. Have you seen those notes? I would be glad to consolidate the notes if you would then feel better enabled to add photos! Although I hope KGI migrates to a photo-sharing system that doesn't require uploading photos to the browser first, one thing I do like about the current system is the way it lets you size the photo by pixels. If you select an H-size - horizontal width, then the vertical size is adjusted automatically. You can also choose to align the photo left or right, as here. I like to name my photos before uploading them so they are easily recognized in the browser list. I started with H-100 pixels, the typical Thumbnail size, then deleted it & moved up to H-200 pixels, then deleted it & tried H-230 pixels for a fit as shown. :-) Correction edit: The compose box showed me a perfect side-by-side view of photo & text, as described above, but once I SAVED the comment the result is stacked as shown, with the photo much larger. So I really don't know how anybody gets predictable results with the KGI Drupal photo system & in fact most KGI members do not get predictable results but just go for it !!! A few people do seem to get results as planned !? Any tips appreciated to round out this failed tutorial ...

Allotmentmanyork

Sun, 07/10/2011 - 01:36

Hi Jessica Beatiful Photo. We have a squirrel that comes and eats most of our tulip bulbs. I think even he would stuggle to get through that lot. :) With regard to photo sizing. After a while you get to know the size of photo that suits you best. You can see the size you used last time and just use the same size again. The main thing to check before you upload a photo is the size in mebabytes. It must be under 3 meg, and annoyingly most of mine are about 3.2 meg. I generally have to upload the photo to flickr and then download to my system to reduce the size. I suppose i could use paint to do the same task. Flickr is quite a good companion site to this one. Their is also a KGI area on flickr that you copy your photo,s too if you want to. That way you can upload a number of photo,s about a specific item and then post a link to them on here. It,s the nearest i can get to the way the old site used to work. And flickr is free for the amount of photo,s that i need to upload. One thing i have just noticed is that the width of a photo dicates the width of any following text by others. I,d say that probably is a glitch. Glenn

Jessica Still

Sun, 07/10/2011 - 23:08

... don't forget about tucking in halves of Jalapeno peppers - the way Ann successfully protects her bulbs!

aphilbeck8

Sun, 07/10/2011 - 03:49

you make me want to grow tulips. LOL I really want to grow lavender like that. We hve the room no doubt. My husband even talked about setting up a drive in movie theater. There is only 8 in the state of Virginia. I would still have a lot of land to grow. I will check out the photo notes, or just get my son to help me with it. I really love that picture. Thanks!

Allotmentmanyork

Sun, 07/10/2011 - 02:06

Hi Ann On the subject of heating your greenhouse in winter. This is a photo i took recently describing how they grow pineapples in winter in Cornwall, England. I don,t know if the text will be readable.We have disscused heat from decomposition in other areas of the site.Glenn

aphilbeck8

Sun, 07/10/2011 - 03:43

Now that would be cool! I saw and red some of the techniques of decompostion for heat. I also looked into the cost. We have no trees hardly on our land. Its cleared. you need a lot of brush for that. it. My husband and I are checking other options of growing for the greenhouse, for now its no nice to have fresh peppers and tomatoes in December. Thanks, Ann

Jessica Still

Sun, 07/10/2011 - 23:21

... is if your regional power company is willing or able to deliver to you the tree trimmings they chip up when they clear their power lines every year. The fresh chips would probably have to be reground smaller for optimal brushwood composting, but a well-prepared big stack of brushwood compost will provide heat for 18 months - has heated houses. Meanwhile, your winter produce is already enviable! :-) Glenn, how DO they heat a pineapple pit in Cornwall?

Allotmentmanyork

Mon, 07/11/2011 - 13:07

Hi Jessica. I,m not sure how they heat a pineapple pit. As you are aware from reading about Jean Pain, it is all a matter of controlling the heat, which i think is a bit of a black art. Strawy stable manure is the key to success, which is what i use now to get my compost heap fired up. How they control the process to ensure continual heat and not a sudden burst of high temperature is a skill that i do not possess. This is a link to the heligan website, that describes what they are doing. I think the problem they have nowadays is that there are only a fraction of the horses around that there were 100 years ago, so horse manure is scarce and expensive to buy in quantity. Glenn

Jessica Still

Fri, 07/08/2011 - 00:47

"We have a solar unit that we bought from Australia that puts out a high pitch (ultrasonic waves) to deter animals from entering the garden area. Only they can hear the sound." Now I am wondering if your ultrasonic device helped deter insects as well as deer! I'll ask here - maybe a KGI Question later - Have any other gardeners tried ultrasonic devices & noticed that they deterred insects? Your herbed butter sounds wonderful! I visualize it quite green on your beautiful corn!

aphilbeck8

Mon, 07/11/2011 - 16:54

Thanks so much for all the comments on this blog. I have learned a lot and hope I could share some insight as well to someone. Kitchen Gardeners International is a great way to do this learning and sharing thing. Thanks again, Ann

You can grow your own food. We can help.

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