Learning how to grow corn is not complicated. It’s a good choice for areas that have long hot summers. Homemade corn is also exciting to grow and eat in a children’s garden because of its unique look and familiar harvest.
I had made several attempts to grow corn in Oregon with quite a few failures. A couple more years of practice here in San Antonio has yielded much better results!
This summer I harvested my first corn from my own garden. It made a delicious corn soup and I have several ears drying for seed in my kitchen now.
How To Grow Corn and Save Your Seeds
There are a few open pollinated varieties of sweet corn available. I’m a big fan of open pollinated seeds in general. Saving your own seed year after year allows you to select and save the fruits and vegetables that produce the best in your particular garden or homestead.
You can also save seeds based on what you like best. If you want your corn ready early, save seeds from the ears that ripen first. If you thought a particular plant had sweeter tasting corn than the others, leave one of the ears on that plant a little longer and save it for next year’s crop.
If you want to save your seeds for future plantings you’ll want to make sure you grow different varieties of corn at least half a mile from each other to prevent cross pollination. For us small scale farmers that means we only get one variety, unless we stagger planting times so they’re not pollinating at the same time.
To save corn seeds let the ears stay on the plant longer than when you’d pick it to eat it. Wait until the tassel is dark brown and the kernels are hard. After you pick your seed corn strip off the husk and let it air dry until it’s completely dry. At that point you can take the kernels off the cob and keep them in a cool, dry place until it’s time to plant again!
When to Plant Corn
Corn is a warm weather vegetable and should only be planted after soil temperature is at least 50 degrees or warmer and there is no more danger of frost. It actually sprouts faster when soil is warmer, so getting it in early doesn’t necessarily save you time. Later plantings can be more susceptible to insects and weeds.
Getting your spring planting in on time is helpful. You can plant additional groupings every couple weeks for ongoing harvest if your summers are long enough. If you have a short growing season you can also get your corn started under a black plastic mulch to help the soil warm up early.
Plant the kernels about one foot apart. You can do rows a couple feet apart, but I think in smaller spaces it makes more sense to plant in blocks of about four feet. This means you can put 16 corn plants in a 4×4 garden and they’ll pollinate each other efficiently. Kernels do best 2-4 centimeters deep in the soil.
After planting keep them watered until they sprout, which should take about one week, but may take up to two. It will grow for about six to eight weeks before beginning to produce tassels and ears. The silk on the end of the ears catches the pollen from the tassels at the top of the plant. This leads to the kernels inside of the ear developing.
When To Harvest Corn
The corn will be ready to pick once the silks start to turn brown and the kernels inside release a milky fluid when poked. If you’re growing popcorn do wait until it is completely dry, like for saving seeds. Just gently grab the ear and bend it away from the stalk to harvest your corn.
Sweet corn tastes best if you can eat it right away, but if you have to you can store it in the fridge for a few days. I was a bit late to harvesting this year, but the corn made a great corn soup anyway. If for some reason not all of the kernels on your cob are developed that just means there was an issue with pollination. Some of mine had that issue, as we had a couple large thunder storms that knocked a lot of the tassels off many of my stalks.
Sources:
Geographic Information Systems Show Impact of Field Placement on sh2 Sweet Corn Stand Establishment by Barr, Bennett, and Cardina https://journals.ashs.org/hort/hort/published/rest/pdf-watermark/v1/journals/horttech/10/2/article-p341.pdf/watermark-pdf/
Sweet Corn Growth and Yield Responses to Planting Dates of the North Central United States by Martin Williams https://journals.ashs.org/view/journals/hortsci/43/6/article-p1775.xml
Growth and yield of sweet corn (Zea mays L.) cultivars in response to planting date and plastic mulch in a short-season environment by A.B. Kwabiah https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0304423804000548
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