We harvested our corn on Sunday night. I was actually pretty nervous about it. You see, I have read alot this summer about small homesteads and family kitchen gardening and I read something that made me question the quality of our first corn crop.
When we planted the corn it came up just fine and looked like it was doing wonderfully. We noticed some purple streaks in the stocks... and we simply assumed that it was because we planted Indian corn. Well, then I read in a book that if the leaves are discolored than it means that you don't have enough nitrogen in the soil. And of course, corn is CRAZY about nitrogen. In one of my book it classified it as a "cleaner" plant... as in it strips the soil of almost all nitrogen. That is why you see it planted after legumes (which put nitrogen into soil... "builders"). They also say that if you fertilize for corn, then you don't have to worry about the rest of your vegetables.
I was just growing the corn as decoration so I wasn't too worried. Plus I saved some seeds so that we could try again in case something happened. In our area we can plant corn again starting on Wednesday. So now we are rethinking our fertilization schedule. I wish we could do it all organic, but I think we will work up to it... like when we have our own place and I have more time to plan out our gardens. Nevertheless, we will try again.... so look forward to a better corn harvest.
Corn is interesting. With all of my other vegetables, I can see the progress. It has really been a faith challenging concept for me. So often in life I want to know exactly how things work and what all the plans are. Sometimes God doesn't want us to know what's His plans are until then very end... when you rip back the shucks to reveal His Glory underneath.
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