Beans & peas
Sweet corn
Block planting; fall round early varieties only.
- Outside
- Direct late Mar to Apr, again late Jul to early Aug
- Where
- In ground or raised bed
- Sun
- Full sun
- Water
- About an inch a week; more through silking
- Harvest
- Late Jun; fall round Sep to Oct
Care
- Water
- About an inch a week, in the early morning on the soil; skip any week that brings half an inch of rain, and lean toward the county's 1 to 2 inch August target while the fall round grows.
- Sow
- Direct sow in a block, never a single row: corn is wind-pollinated and named with beans and squash among the Three Sisters. Late March to April for the spring crop; late July to early August for a fall round of early varieties only.
- Feed
- A heavier feeder than the legumes around it: compost worked in at planting, one side-dress as the stalks get going, then nothing through the county's July-August stop-feeding stretch.
- Ready
- Silks brown, the ear fills tight to the tip, and a quick twist down drops it. The spring crop silks into June heat, so some years bring scattered, half-filled ears; the fall round fills cleaner in the cooling days of September and October.
- Trouble
- Gappy ears and missing kernels: pollination, not pests, and heat at silking makes it worse in June, which is why the block matters and the bed has to be wide enough to hold one. Single rows produce patchily no matter how well they grow.
In a bag?
- No
- The block planting that pollination demands will not fit under a 15 gallon cap, and the research notes file corn with cowpeas among the crops that need the open ground. Corn for elote deserves the bed.
Corn stays a spring staple here, sown in blocks after frost, with a fall round of early varieties as the bonus and not a guarantee.
Growing
The statewide calendar puts spring corn 1 to 6 weeks after frost, which is late March through April here. The sweet corn sheet adds the rule that makes or breaks it: plant a block, since corn is wind-pollinated, and files it with beans and squash among the Three Sisters. The honest catch is timing: an April sowing silks in June, right as the fruit-set gap arrives, so some years bring scattered, half-filled ears. The fall round goes in late July to early August, early varieties only under the county's 60 day fall rule, and fills as the days cool in September and October.
Varieties
The Texas sweet corn sheet names normal sugary types (Bonanza, Merit, Silver Queen, Sweet G-90), sugary enhanced (Ambrosia, Argent, Bodacious, Golden Queen, Kandy Korn, Legend, Tendertreat) and shrunken, the supersweets (Crisp-N-Sweet, Florida Staysweet, Frontier, Honey n Pearl, How Sweet It Is, Mirai, Summer Sweet). For the fall round, read days to maturity and take the fastest name on the shelf.
In the kitchen
Elote and esquites are the reason corn sits in this garden's orbit: grilled in the husk and rolled in crema and chile powder, or cut off the cob and simmered with the same. Surplus ears blanch and freeze for the winter pots.