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05/01/2007: "A Corny Post"

Today we started planting corn! Nate's continuing with his corn breeding project in a big way.


Nate saved the choice kernels from last year's harvest of flint corn. And today, MayDay, was the day to plant. He's been prepping the bed for weeks, and planning for months. With rain in the forercast, we took the opportunity to put the first major crop of the year in the ground.

First we had to make furrows. The bed wasn't quite as fully decomposed as we might like, so there were (are) some clumps of grass to contend with. Nate's planned it out so the rows of corn are evenly spaced, and just wide enough for the tiller to pass through. Using the tiller is the most efficient way to weed in between the rows. So we laid out our lines and tried to make a nice straight line underneath the twine.


Here I am demonstrating how to plant corn on a tedious scale. I love the red corn, solely because it's red, and I insisted we had to grow more red corn. So it's my job to plant it. Each kernel was spaced 6 inches from the next. That's roughly the distance from the first eye hole on my sneakers to the tip of my sneakers. I'd place the long PVC pipe against the ground under the wire and drop the kernel down the tube. That saves a lot of bending over. Then I'd move my foot forward to measure, adjust the tube, and drop another kernel. I did three rows this way and it took about two hours. Bleh. But I do like red corn, so it's worth it.


Nate got clever and got out the Earthway seeder. It digs a little furrow and drops in a seed as you push it along. For most of the yellow corn, the spacing should be about 4 inches, which the seeder allows (it doesn't have a setting for 6" spacing). Nate was doing 3 rows with the time it took me to do one! The problem is, though, that it's a lot of work to push it through the debris that's still in the bed. It also doesn't make a terribly straight line. So Nate was saving some time, but also creating some headaches.

We have had a lot of other interesting things happening lately. Only I kept forgetting my camera! Nate, Rebecca, and I went to help out a neighboring large scale farmer over the weekend. We helped him with transplanting radishes into a 26 acre field. It was a huge production and involved some very sophisticated machinary. Only I forgot my simple camera so I can't tell you about it. My friend Bob came out and helped us plant 25 ash trees in the swale, and I don't have pictures of that, either. Luckily, Kurt was able to post about many of the goings on.

It looks like we'll finish up with the corn tomorrow, and perhaps we'll transplant the pepper and tomato seedlings into larger soil blocks. I do have pictures of those!