A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2006 corn going to tassle!

this was my "experimental" corn anyhow so i wasn't expecting anything big but this is weird, hopefully someone will have an answer for me. what makes corn only about 12 inches tall start forming tassles???? this is the corn i started indoors in peat pots and planted outdoors a week or 2 ago. would the pots do it? or is there another reason i should be aware of for the ones i direct sowed?

I have no idea, but it sounds like it would look cute. Maybe it's going to make that baby corn?

anyone have any idea????

What kind of soil is it in????

same as rest of my veggies. corn has grown good in it past 2 years and they are rotated. first year we dug up the grass tilled in 2 garbage cans full of composted horse manure (garden is 8x16 ft) 2 bales of peat moss since we have very very heavy soil. next year tilled in little hay and 1 bale of peat moss. this spring turned in 1 bale of peat moss and some chopped leaves from fall. i have the ph tester and it reads between 6.5 and 7. usually i have feed them with miracle-gro. hopefully soon i can have some compost done before summer ends but until then what do i do?

My own personal thought is, to
lay off the peat moss...
Whew!

To me, it sounds like, ALOT of nitrogen stealing
stuff put in the dirt/soil, and then a heavy feeder plant planted and no nitrogen stuff added..
All that you put in, is still in the process of breaking down, and as it breaks down, it steals/robs nitrogen in the soil... and away from the plant... then corn is a HEAVY FEEDER, and
that could stress the plant..
Which makes the plant believe it's under attack of some sort.. and thinks it needs to hurry up and produce a "seed" to perpetuate the species...

When did you plant them?

And has it been also hot and dry???

if i don't add peat moss what can i add in to lighten up the soil? when it gets wet too much it does tend to puddle and if it dries out it cracks. it's not light airy stuff. peat moss was the only thing i knew to add in to lighten it up. any other suggestions then? and why not peat moss? just because it uses the nutrients?????

oh and no it hasn't been hot a dry- actually we were warm (70's) for a while and then it cooled off a bit and hopefully we'll get up to 80 this weekend! YAY!

Wow, Weezie, you sure are knowlegable about this stuff !
BTW, I bought my first carton of ladybugs today.
What fun ! The nursery said to spray my plants with water before letting the ladybugs out.
This is fun watching them. I hope they breed and stay a long, long time.
I got them because my roses have holes in the leaves lately. Don't know what bug is biting, but would rather let the ladybugs handle the problem.

So thats how it is? Send out the lady patrol to kill off us men?

As far as fluffing up your soil. . dont you have a hoe? This works fine for me. . if i DONT hoe it up. . . the soil gets claylike baked on top and really thick/claylike. I work it every day when i get home from work. takes me about 5-10 minutes cuz i keep it so brokenup & loose And waters VERY NICELY!

As a matter of fact. . lemme ask you guys a question about hoeing/row-spacing. On average, how far out do the roots of like per say tomatoes, corn & other typical plants go out? I have spaced about 2.5' in rows and i am hoeing about 10" close to the plant. is this too close? am i going to eventually be eating up the roots?

Very funny ! Yep, I sent out the girl power !
I plant only in containers so there's no soil compaction.
That's a darn good question about hoeing too close. I'm interested in the answer, and learning, as I hope to have a real garden someday.

First off, I'm no expert. But I think that clay soils benefit from gypsum (the stuff they make drywall out of). From what I've read, it loosens clay soils and adds calcium to the soil, plus removes sodium. I think my new gardener's mantra is "compost, compost, organic matter". I've been looking into adding some organic matter to my soil via green manure. There are several plants, like rye, you could plant as a fall/winter plant that will help to break up tough soil and draw up deep nutrients. As an added benefit you can just mow it over, till it in, and *presto* instant organic matter for your garden! I'm not certain but I think peat moss is bad because is decomposes so slowly, thus actually removing nitrogen from the soil. At least that is my understanding of things. Hope that this helps!

Sarah

I have also had corn to tassle early.. I don't know the real reason, but I think it has something to do with the weather.. did you harder off the corn before putting it in the garden?

here in Okla, our weater can go from cold to hot in a matter of days.. or 70s to 100s or from wet to dry.

maybe it is also it is not getting the water it once did.

Also Corn dones't like to be planted in any shade, they love sun all day. and as others have said, they are very heavy feeders.


depending on what type of corn your planted, it just might go on and be oK, you could also plant more corn (I think you still have time)

oh yea- i have planted 2 more succesions and going to maybe do a 3 one this weekend. so i'll get corn- but just wondering what made it do this and if i had to worry about it with my other ones.