Okay, I'm all prepared to put oil on the silks of my corn to prevent ear worms. And then realized I have no idea when to do it. I was looking at my very short but tasselling corn yesterday, and saw the silk on some. Do I add the oil now, as soon as i find silk? Yes, I'm new to this, and yes, I realize that at 2-3 feet tall the likelyhood of any good corn is slight, but I can;t seem to give up without a fight.....:)
Oiling corn?
Wait until som of the silks are showing signs of browning before applying mineral oil. It needs to pollinate first. The timing is tricky but you will soon get the hang of it.
You may have just saved me from disaster, and not for the first time :) It did occur to me that oily silk might not be a plus for pollination.Thanks, Farmerdill, I'll go check them now....
When we oiled the corn in Maine, we would wait until there was a really good level of silks with some brown. We also had a 'designated failure' that we used to check the corn. One bush that we would periodically check the corns to see if a worm had set in or not, to let us know when it was time to oil again (we used to have to do about 3 oilings per season), and that we could see what the general progress of the corn growth was so that we could decide when to harvest.
And then, on the night before the day of the harvest, the raccoons would steal the corn......
Giggle. I don't have enough to knowingly sacrifice any :). I thought of raccoons yesterday as I gazed sorrowfully at my very short corn. The developing ears are at the perfect height for a raccoon banquet. They won;t even have to stand up......
sigh....
Oh dear.
We did finally start using the stinky rag technique to keep most of the raccoons and deer out of the garden, but it didn't work for all of them all the time. We would put our handkerchiefs that we used to mop our heads, and our filthy, sweaty t-shirts on poles in the gardens, and change them out every couple of days so we could wash the laundry. The smell of human in the garden USUALLY kept the deer and raccoons out - mostly.
Hmmm. What a wonderful reason not to do laundry :) Thanks!!
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