Wednesday, August 13, 2014

Corn Crop


 
We have a small fenced garden area.  It was put here by the previous owners.  Every year since we moved here I have planted tomatoes and zucchini.  I also like to plant herbs like basil, rosemary and lavender.

 

Every year after the first, my zucchini was invaded by a squash borer.  So, I would get a few zucchinis and then the plants would start to die.  For a while I sprayed the zucchini every few weeks with an insecticide.  But I really didn't want to spray poison on my food.  And if I didn't spray often enough I would still get the borers.

This year I gave up.  I'm going for crop rotations.  It's what real farmers do to keep pests away.  We planted corn.  A lot of corn.

Corn has to be planted in close rows so they rub together and pollinate each other.  We planted every two weeks for three different sections.  The theory behind this is so that you don't have the whole crop getting ripe at the same time.

 

When the tassels turn black, the corn is ripe.  Look!  Black tassels!

 

My father grew up in Iowa.  He had a method for cooking corn.  First you get a pot of water boiling.

 

Then you go out and pick the corn, shuck it, and pop it in the boiling water.  Boil for a few minutes and slather with butter.

 

Fresh corn!

 

3 comments:

  1. And after you tire of eating corn on the cob, there's always corn chowder, corn soup, cornbread and corn pudding. I suspect we may be seeing an influx of corn recipes soon, Rebecca.

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  2. A friend brought us 6 ears from Ikenberry's to welcome us to Botetourt County. That was the prettiest corn I've ever seen. Yours looks the same. There must be something special in the soil over here.

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