Corn - a new challenge

Corn in Cascadia. Is it doable? We'll find out.

I discovered the 'three sisters' concept last year. (More info: gardenweb.com and Renee's Garden I'm determined to make it happen. Squash and beans are no problem... they're easy. Corn on the other hand, is more complicated.

First off, there's planting the corn. Corn can't just be dropped into any bed. Corn roots go deep (up to 4 ft!). "Over the course of a growing season, about 40% of the water used by corn will come from the first foot of soil, 30% from the second foot and 20% from the third foot. Less than 10 percent will be obtained from the soil below 3 feet." We diligently till and amend the soil in all our beds, but not 4 feet down.

To solve this problem, I've decided to build a new raised bed. Raised beds offer several advantages. Even with building a raised bed and importing soil from the nursery, I still have to dig down to break up and amend the existing soil - but at least I'm not digging down as far. (I'm aiming for 18-24 inches down and a 24" high raised bed). The earth under where I'm putting this bed has had excavators, my F-150 on top of it... and it's even been worked over with a compactor. Breaking it up took some work. Another benefit of raised bed gardening is that the temperature of the soil comes up faster in the spring. I expect that this raised bed will prove useful for other warm weather crops in future rotations.

A change from other crops we've grown is that corn has both female and male flowers on the same plant. (Primer) Normally the wind would provide what's needed for pollination to occur - but to ensure a strong crop I'll likely have to manually pollinate the corn.

To top it all off... lots of things beside humans like to eat corn. We've got raccoons, crows, and squirrels in abundance and they all like corn.

A worthy challenge... but worth it for the prize of fresh, sweet corn.