So the corn is ripe a little sooner than I anticipated. The corn I planted this year was Early Sunglow which has a maturity date of 65 days. Supposedly, the corn is ripe 16 days after the silk appears... Last year, that's exactly how it happened. But this year, the silk was forming at about day 58 and was truly ripe at day 77, 19 days later. But, this year, weird things have been happening too. Perhaps the really hot temps early in June, then the really cool temps and humidity back and forth over the month of July to now caused the corn to be stressed? The amount of tillers, for one. The kernel ears on the tillers for second. Plus the baby corn inside the husk, right next to a full sized ear.... it's definitely been a year for strange corn growth that I don't have any experience with. (I'm still looking on corn sites to find an explanation for conjoined ears of corn.)
So I am done fertilizing the rows and now it is just a harvest and watering from this point on. Then we knock back the stalks and if we were proactive, we could cover the garden this fall to kill any and all weeds until we are ready to plant again next year.
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| Ears are ready to pick |
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| Tassel Ears |
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| Conjoined Ears Separated |
