Wednesday, March 5, 2014

I DON'T Have Corn

So I got a bit excited when I discovered for the first time what looked like ears of corn growing on my one corn plant.  Turns out you need a LOT of plants in order to successfully pollinate to actually produce ears with real kernels. After reading a little more I learned that pollen from the top of the plants needs to fall onto the silk in the middle of the plants in order to get successful kernels.  Apparently one strand of silk will form one kernel if it is adequately pollinated.  Wind is what carries pollen to the silk and so you need tons of plants for enough pollen to land on each silk.  Sheesh, no wonder my one lonely plant didn't actually give me any kernels. What a tease!! Ears without kernels, booo..

I've read on other blogs that people have hand pollinated their plants by either shaking the plants or by running their hand along the tassel to collect pollen and then sprinkling it onto the silk.  This is worth a try next time I grow corn again, although I am feeling a little discouraged now..

Failed corn aside, I am growing lettuce and bok choy for the first time from seed. Not too shabby for my first try... (as you can see, as a beginner in gardening, I am attempting a LOT of things for the first time and I get lucky sometimes and things actually survive!!).  Along the bottom are varieties of different types of pepper and herbs.





1 comment:

  1. I was very excited last year to see our corn come up too. We had about eight stalks. Never turned into corn. We didn't do our garden this year and I miss it. Hope it's not too late, think we may just do lettuce and tomatoes. Thanks for stopping by my blog and for the sweet comment.

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