Cultivation, just means stirring the soil around the plants. In my case, I use sweeps and coulters. In the kitchen garden I use a walk behind rototiller and 24-18 inch rows. Cultivation was the norm before the advent of herbicides. This is a 1956 Farmall 100, Few if any row crop tractors are made today as it is more labor intensive than using herbicides. In a smaller space like a kitchen garden, cultivation is stopped as the plants get a few inches high and the soil warms up. At that time mulch is appllied, (leaves, grass clippings, pinestraw) . I use about 15 pickup loads on a 60 x 80 ft kitchen garden. Can't do that in the field.
Disc refers to the use of a disc harrow, in final soil preparation.
Corn question
Appreciate the thorough explanation. In studying the picture of your tractor I couldn't see what you were pulling. I thought it looked like a single bottom plow in prep for planting. So Farmerdill, where do you find replacement parts for your Farmall? Always wanted a "43 Willy"!
No trees, mulch mow the lawn, and straw when available at $4.00 a brick is about the readily available mulch. Shredded newspaper is cheapest source of much available. All you need to do is park in front of a recycle dumpster on a nice spring saturday with a sign on your vehicle saying "New Paper Wanted". Good way to meet nice little old ladies too.
Alfalfa hay and possibly ground up alfalfa is readily available here. Thought about using it as a mulch or cultivator (if that's a proper term), but most of the alfalfa fields in the valley have something called 'mustard grass' which is difficult to remove because of it's single long tap root. Remove dozens from the yard each year, possibly wind blown from alfalfa field across the road.
Mraider. Row crop tractors use mid mounted cultivars. In this photo the sweeps have been replaced with a large shovel to lay off rows. It is below the fertilizer bin. There are still a few Case-IH dealers that stock a few parts, but Yesterdays Tractors is a dependable source.
Farmer,
I have a '49 TO-20 Fergueson with a 2 -12" mounted plow. I plowed one of the 3 gardens last fall as this garden is not with a lot of raised beds in it. The soil was beginning to get nice today with that fall plowing....makes the dark soil of this garden so loose.
I set out the onion plants today and planted sugar snap peas. Also I planted one double row about 33 feet long of gladious bulbs. The bulbs are not much sprouted yet this year as this spring has been rather cold and wet here until last Saturday. I keep the bulbs over winter in my slightly heated garage.
Also I set out 6 broccoli too as the weather looks good for this week.
Since this is a corn thread.....no I didn't plant any corn yet!
TO 20 was a great machine, the TO 30 was my favorite of the utility machines tho. My corn goes in this week weather permitting. Delectable, Silver Princess, Silver King, Silver Queen. Have 100 broccoli moving right along, set the first of March, 50 cabbage, 50 cauliflower. Watermelons and melons as soon as I get the land prepared. Aiming for the 15th. Crest is the trial hybrid watermelon this year. Sigal and Girlie the Galia melons, Honeycomb for the Honeydew, and Abu and Harpers for cantaloupes. Of course the standards will be there for comparison.
I didn't end up any good with my one Crest melon . It set on a crown set real early, but a small melon. Then it set on 8 all at once...too many. Then it died down some. Then it came back some, but in all the fuss I didn't get any quality. I have noticed that second set watermelons like to set on way too many and need thinned out a lot.
I sure like that Summer Flavor #420 though.
Woo-hoo, I have some corn up! I counted about 12 in my little space. Y'all cross your fingers for me, please. I wish I could tear up the blasted useless front yard and grow a real crop, but for now, this is it. Jill, do you have corn up? How high?
I didn't plant corn this year but I did last year. I planted the corn in a circle, then green beans to climb the stalks and zucchini on the feet to cool the ground. It is called three sisters in the southwest. The corn was a bust for me but the green beans and zucchini worked well.
taynors...I tried few pole grean beans with corn two seasons ago and it worked out alright but they were a bit difficult to get too. Last year I tried again with pole varieties of sugar peas, beans and limas. Unfortunately the green beans and limas didn't take because of late season frosts. Peas did well but I missed about half of them because of corn spacing. This year I'm sticking to bush varieties for peas and beans. I can't say that there was any significant difference in the corn production from the nitrogen fixing lagumes, but that's not something I can't verify. If you do plan to try this, I would suggest using Farmer's planting suggestion which he recommended to me on spacing the corn seed further apart (12"-14"), and rows about 36" apart. This response is based on only two trials...so take it for what its worth.
I showed my FIL this thread and he also agrees that Farmer has a good planting plan. He said he used to do it that way when he was kid. He also told many stories of his corn yrs growing up. He was also surprised at my selection of corn of Stowell. It brought back memories for him. That was the one they planted as a kid. :)
thanks mraider
I believe that one should plant according to their environmental challenges. In the desert southwest we have no humidity, just blast furnace heat. I plant close together trying to create a cooler, more humid environment. My problem with the three sisters method was the corn stalks were dried up and ready to come out before the beans were finished. I just rerouted the beans to another support system and they kept producing. I also had black ants crawling up the corn stalks. Next time I plant corn I will ring the bottom of the stalks with vaseline so they can't get to the corn.
rtl850nomore, I had the same problem the one year I tried corn and beans. I didn't have the option of alternate support, so all I had was one big disaster. Not pretty.
TF, yes I have corn up! DH had some of the sweetest richest compost you could ever hope to see, so I gave it a good feeding today, and filled in the trench I planted in. So far, nothing's actually blown over with the winds we've had the last couple of days, but some of the bigger ones were leaning a bit.
Great picture. Oh darn, now I wish I had made room for corn this year.
Thanks, rtl850nomore! The Evil Gardener who lives in the back of my brain convinced me to do two different kinds, so there's three rows of Silver Queen and three rows of Sugar Dots. I know I'm skirting on the ragged edges of not enough for pollinization, so I'm just keeping my fingers crossed, and making plans to help things along when the time comes.
The pumpkin is volunteering from a seed from last fall's jack-o-lantern. I figure, why not let it, it should help keep things a little bit cooler under there!
Farmerdill I have planted cauliflower this year. Just a little bit not like yours.I have never seen it growing. I know the head grows in the middle. I thought I read somewhere you have to cover the head with the leaves until it is big. Is that correct? And can it go to flower like brocolli does too. Any help appreciated. deanna
In this climate it is best to tie up the leaves when cauliflower begins to head, Otherwise strong sunlight causes some drastic color changing ( browning, greening of the curds) causing strong flavors. I just pull the leaves upward and tie them with piece of twine, simulating a teepee effect. Some folks use rubber bands. Do this when you can spot the little white button that is the beginning of the head. Note that cauliflower heads VERY fast. About three days from the button to a full size head, so when you tie them up, be sure to check the heads in three days. Never had one go quite a week. Once the curds start to separate, quality goes downhill fast. After the head separates and deteriorates it will some times go to seed, but often it will just rot.
That is just about the prettiest head of cauliflower I've ever seen! It's really hard to find one in the grocery that doesn't have some shade of yellow or brown or have little dried spots on top.
Jill that is some pretty corn. Now a question: If there is not enough corn to cross-pollinate, can that be done by hand? I'm in Jill's boat; I know I don't really have enough plants for a good crop.
Three rows of corn should be sufficient for pollination.When in doubt just go early in the morning when it is shooting and tasseling and gentley brush the outside rows of stalks to stimulate the fall of pollen onto the silks.
Thanks, TF!
And thanks for the info on pollination assistance, Farmerdill. I'm sure I'll be out there some morning soon, rustling my corn! And I agree with Tomatofreak--that is a beautiful head of cauliflower!
Jill,
Here's a really interesting Zuni story of the Corn Maidens. You may already be familiar with it, but I thought of it when you said you'd be doing pollination assistance--sort of a corn dance. : )
http://www.sacred-texts.com/etc/omw/omw86.htm
David
Thanks, David! No, I hadn't seen that one before--I'm glad you shared. :)
Farmer,we have never planted corn before and it is stunted . my husband said his father planted it on hills . We now have 12 rows of pale green plants sitting on hills.I think maybe his memory of corn is bad ? Rows are 30x4 .12 short rows
Our neighbor told us to plant it in trenches and cover it as it grows.
I hand dug those mounds and double dug the soil .Should we just turn it in the soil and start over ?
I planted corn for the first time. I planted one row with okra on one side and tomatoes on the other side. I did know to plant several severals rows for pollination. What are my chances of having any corn?
Whats up doc. It is better to plant corn in trenches or flat and hill it up as it grows. However if your corn is pale green, that is a lack of nitrogen not your planting method. If it still ypoug side dress it with a high nitrogen fertilizer ( Chicken manure, Nitrate of Soda, or something with a relatively high N number. !0-10-10 may be enough.
Raggins, It would pay you to shake pollen from the tassels onto the silks at the proper time. The wind normally does this, but with a single row the wind may blow the pollen away from the silks instead of onto them. You most likely will have to give it some help. As long as you get pollen onto the silks you will be ok, Note tho that you should do this several days running not just once over. When the wind is still just walk down the row and gently shake each stalk.
Thanks Farmer .
Where do i find the Nitrate of Soda ?How about amonia ? I use to make a batch for garden with amonia, dish liquid, cola and a couple oher ingrediates, but forgot the formula. I try to stay organic as possible . I know the last soil test said it was high in Phosphate and the PH was only 6 , so I put some ashes in and fish emulsion.
We are going to buy a good soil tester, because I'm really getting tired of bad results. I do most of the digging by hand for exercise, but I'm no spring chic and don't want to do unnessasary work while the knats do backstrokes across my eyeballs and the ants crawl up my pants . I have skin cancer so I can't be in the sun much so most of my time is evening .
Thanks again .
This message was edited Apr 28, 2008 7:28 PM
Many garden centers will have nitrate of soda, but if you want to stay organic, get the composted chicken manure or blood meal. The chicken manure is less expensive. Ammonia is tricky and of course not organic. pH of 6 is good for corn. Fish emulsion is high in nitrogen and would work best as a foliar feed.
Farmerdill thanks I will do my best to shake the little fellows along. My husband says I can't grow corn...I need to win this game...There will be a whole lot of shaking going on!
Ok, I will try the fish on the leaves.
My green pepper plants are blooming now and look fairly good, not as tall as they were last season, but it could be different brand of seed .
When I had my donkey Rosie I double dug and put her maure in the bottom hole and had the best garden ,but couldn't take proper care of her hooves anymore after husband was dissabled. Gave her to good home. I miss her she was so smart and loved to please and kept us in good compost.Donkey manure has no seeds because they digest food completely.
We let the garden fill with weeds, so we stay bus pulling weeds .
Hort class was nothing but mind blowing science so I didn't learn much that one semester I took years ago ,plus I was the oldest one in the school other than professors.We planted thousands of plants for the Atlanta Olympics .All that study and still know little about growing plants .
planted corn today . With my FIL, he had a good time ! brought back memories for him as a kid. He showed me how his dad used to do it. He used his feet to walk along when it was time to cover the seeds up with dirt. Right along the trench.
Kids got in the act too.
FIL trenched, kids planted seeds and i walked along covering with my feet, GOod time we all had.
Even if we don't get corn it will be a good memory. This might be my FIL last yr to do much. He is on oxygen.
We did two rows of Stowells Evergreen 34 ' each we might do some more rows later next week .
sue
That's nice, Sue.
I got corn up now...first planting.
It's Ambrosia se+ bi-color.
I slightly ridged my rows to facilitate dryness, warmth, and drainage especially in the early going. If you live in Indiana, you know what I mean.
Hi all,
and greeting from Georgia! So glad to find a discussion about corn. I planted my first this year. I planted some peaches & cream and some silver queen. The plants look great, but I have small ants all over them. There is also a black bug about 3/8 " tall that is on the stalk and constantly moves to the opposite side from you as you move around. Does anyone know what this might be? I have tried sevin dust for the ants - we'll see how that goes. Would love to hear what anyone else might be doing for ants and such on corn.
PS - We also have 13 cats I don't want to make sick with my remedies.
Good luck to all,
Rosemary