EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT GROWING CORN

so been following along on our row by row group  on facebook and a lot of people got snow and ice   and stuff on the ground uh i was watching the news  last night so uh fella from texas was saying that   uh them uh wind turbines and solar panels sure  wasn't doing them a whole lot of good right now   that everybody needed some gas to run them  generators our uh guys over at dick's nail farms   posted a few pictures and they belong below san  antonio and they got a decent amount of snow yeah   so i don't know what's going on what's going  to be the outcome of this we've had this arctic   arctic air blow in and cause some problems  we'll be interested to see what makes it   through it or not i think it's going to  be a rough year for the fruit tree guys   what's crazy is so where we are we're far enough  east that it's like when that when the real cold   come along there it gets so far east and it  kind of pushes up north so we had we've gotten   because of rain i had how much how much rain have  we got enough i had a whale in the yard the day i   had to kind of i've had water standing where  i didn't know water could stand yeah lots and   lots of rain gonna get more rain we'll get more  in everybody's behind on the potato plant and   what did you do for valentine's day uh i had to  improvise yeah improvise me and bubby had to go to   the store and get some uh get a card and starbucks  gift card and just kind of well you should have   done what i've done i just sat down and wrote  a poem oh really i wrote you my poem uh-huh   yes i did i wrote her a poem and i gave it  to him and said roses red violets are blue   my dear darling we're not going to be able to  plant taters today but if won't rain no more   we can plant them in bay that's pretty good it's  pretty good she just nearly teared up on that one   i fear if you plant taters in may you're going to  be a badger well if it don't rain the more we can   plant them in may did you understand what i said  right here yeah i got a tarp on my spot i got a   tarp on my tarp would have washed off i'm telling  you it is as wet here as i have seen it alone now   i'm not going to say never in a long long time  yeah so we hadn't got we hadn't got any of the   snow and the super cold stuff uh but what did  happen earlier this week is and this is i've seen   this happen here before when you go it can be kind  of cool and then all of a sudden it get really   warm outside you get tornadoes popping remember  yeah there was one in damascus it was pretty   bad yeah i think i saw one in north carolina  was pretty bad and you get some unseasonably   warm weather here in the south when tornadoes will  churn up and uh makes me nervous you walk outside   and you see it get real still you better you  better get yeah when you hear thunder in february   you know you went in for some trouble um so we're  wet uh hopefully gonna dry we're behind we are   behind but don't feel don't fret everybody's  behind so we'll make it uh maybe things will   work out we can get some taters cut up for long  yeah i think i'm in the next few days i'mma go   i'm thinking if i if i just go ahead and kind of  get prepared for it things will just turn around   right for me so i'm gonna cut up some taters in  the next few days because i got my tarp on my plot   it's not too wet but i don't want to plant them  before we get in another three inches or so   well we had several people posting about wanting  to know if their onions was going to be okay if   this was going to be okay and someone asked you  the question i thought you had interest in astra   a lot of people are asking me yeah and  my onions and stuff gonna be all right   to eight degrees i don't know i ain't never seen  it get that the coldest i've ever seen gear was 17   degrees a few years ago my onions made it through  that because it wasn't 17 but for an hour or two   but i like i told them my buddy wes the naked hog  he's like should i you know is this stuff going   to make it i said you guessed just as good as mine  all you did cross your fingers yeah i mean you get   down to single digits it's tough i mean i don't  i can't foresee any than making single digits   garlic maybe oh yeah garlic but i'm talking about  the onions but we'll see hope the best that's all   you can do if they don't you know what you back  up punt and replant go again that's all you can do   you can't happen once you can't cry over spilled  milk spilled milk or cold onions totally you can't   create it that's right can't cry over anything  that's gardening that's going to happen sometimes   yeah seeds we've been getting some seeds in we  got our peanuts came in about a week ago we're   getting all kind of things in we're getting some  beans in i hear rumors that peas are gonna be   coming soon yeah uh shipment of beans is coming in  soon so we should get all our beans restocked peas   should be here shortly they didn't make it on  the bean shipment but they uh should be here   shortly some field peas once we get those in  probably takes a week or so to get all those   packed and packets and pounds and all that  good stuff have those i got some new pepper   varieties that are coming because a lot of  people have been delayed and if you ain't   started your peppers yet you really ain't  behind at this point because you know uh   it's gonna be a late year folks right so i  got some new pepper varieties coming i hope   to have on the site in the next few weeks i got  these are like these are commercial grade hybrid   pepper varieties sure enough good stuff so i got  a giant jalapeno variety called colossus coming   i've got a really good hybrid productive habanero  called helios i've got a giant serrano coming uh i   think it's called trapio i've got a giant poblano  coming that'll be i love them pablo nice big   stuffing i think that variety is called hidalgo  and then this other one is a big long cayenne   now around here these the commercial guys  grow it and they call them finger hots   oh yeah yeah yeah but but i don't know anybody  else that calls them that i think that might   just be their name no it's something that's been  around for a long time i mean i can remember we   used to grow finger hearts when i was young  man we sold them in baltimore i mean it was a   variety we talked about on top of not all right  excuse me it was a type of pepper you look up   finger hot online you don't come up with a whole  lot well that doesn't mean anything right i know   then we talk about finger hot stand when you say  finger hunting i know exactly what you're talking   about right but a lot of people might not know  we used to make pepper sauce out of it right yeah   long cayenne peppers like that yo aunt doris you  screw about an acre a year yep a bunch of anyway   i've looked and looked and i finally found  these finger hot uh pepper seeds and have   some of those yeah they make awesome pepper  sauce uh what else so we got those coming uh   transplants we talked about too wet i got some  broccoli and cabbage needs to go in the ground   and hopefully this weekend i can get a little bit  of a spell and get some things dried up to get   those dreams you'll be lucky i won't never happen  at my house really no i'm telling you son it's   wet out here now i got some spots a little higher  talking about the chickens to start swimming it's   wet out there that cabbage down the road is  looking pretty good all this rain it's gonna   be tough on some of these root diseases pythium  and other stuff it's gonna be tough on cabbage   yeah anything that's planted speaking of that  i have seen and i'm just warning folks this is   gonna happen as much wet weather as we've had on  these onions i'm seeing a lot of disease problems   on the onions blight has jumped out here with  vengeance if you've seen those little specks on   your leaves you probably got some blood very well  could have some more type of diseases on them but   it just comes with a territory when we have this  much moisture for this long prolonged period of   time as you're going to have some disease problems  now it is possible that they grow out of it   but uh blood has jumped on a little earlier than  normal it's just due to the weather we've had   and i hear you're working on bringing on some  more we have a really good line of uh organic   natural pest control products but you're bringing  along a line of more conventional stuff we are   we're in but not only we're bringing along we'll  be able to tell people that we have tested it   we've used these products and we're going to  give them direct instructions on how to use   them if they want to go down that road we might  even have something for that that uh booger peak   field peak perculia so stay tuned for that for  those of you who who aren't strictly organic   we might have some stuff that uh knock out some  of those bad boogers what else we got going on   oh let me show this right here i'm going to  do kind of a circle back around here well so   so if you've been to the website lately and looked  at our seed start supply section we now have   our own line of germination mats this is the 100  watt version so we have three different types   we've got a 17 watt which is small it's a 10 20  tray exactly yeah if you go on our website and   look at either of these i have listed on there how  many of our 162s how many of our 12 sale how many   of our 24 steel trays will fit on each of these  mats so we've got a 17 watt that's the smallest   we got this 100 watt here which is uh 21 by 48  good size you could put two 162s on that one   might hang off the end a little bit but you  could put two with the big trays on that one   then we have 150 watt that's uh 60 inches long now  the 150 watt uh it is set up so you have a master   mat and then you can daisy chain three additional  match that so if you got a really long bench   you're starting a lot of seeds on that is really  really ideal we also have the thermostats on the   site and it is highly recommended if not necessary  that you got to have the thermostat with these   to keep them the right temperature so if you  haven't seen these go check them out really   high quality mats one thing i will mention you see  that little right there you will ul listed so yep   that means it is very very safety certified for  indoor growing this is the only mat that is ul   listed so there is several if you go to amazon  specifically and look around there is some cheap   heat mats out there there's a few different  brands of just dirt cheap and they're made   dirt cheap this right here we was very particular  about you know our heat map had to meet certain   specifications had to be high quality and it's  not the cheapest one out there but it is one we   could be proud to sell one of the very few that's  ualv uh listed ul listed excuse me and look at   the thing neat little thing i added right there to  the side is some germination temperatures and germ   time for a lot of different crops about that grow  from transplants which could happen i said that to   say this those old i won't call them old those  blue germination mats we carried forever which   we still use in our greenhouse they are awesome  really good mats we don't really want to carry   two different kind of mats and we got about 20 of  those fire sales fire sale those blue mats they're   really good commercial grade mats we just didn't  want to carry two different types and these new   ones we got we got a little better availability on  those well let me carry them in stock yeah we was   not able to get a smaller mat in that particular  line so we was really interested in carrying   a small map for people that just wanted to  germinate one tree at a time and we was able to   get these with different sizes there and that was  one of the compelling reasons we went with this   particular mat here the blue ones are wonderful  but they're more for a larger type grower   yeah and the the blue ones we've had ours for six  seven eight nine ten years or so yeah if you grow   if you're a market farmer or something like that  they're wonderful for you for the homeowner they   may be just a tad too big yeah so those blue  mats if you go on our website click on seed   start supplies and look at blue germination mats  those are half off half off you won't find them   any cheaper they're half off so we can get rid of  them and transition completely to these because it   can make things confusing in a warehouse for our  pickers and packers when we have too many uh fire   sales so if you want some of those go get them you  won't regret them also if you want to check out   these new sizes of the ones we have those are  awesome too new varieties we've got one more   thing we've got some new products coming in the  next couple weeks now i'm not gonna mention them   yeah because i don't wanna spoil things but we  got some exciting things gonna be happening within   the next two weeks matter of fact the truck is  carrying the product right now so within the next   day or two we should get delivery on them when  we do it's gonna take us two or three days to get   all our ducks in the road we get them on our  website man i am excited about what's coming   and once we get our new we in transition  of moving things into the new warehouse   and once we get all that settled we hope to have a  complete line of microgreen to see you too oh yeah   yep speaking of seed let's go over some new  varieties and this is going to be a giant themed   new variety segment this week all right these  some of these giant things are fascinating   to me so let's go through a few of them  start off with giant pumpkins so we have   two varieties already on the side we have one  called prize winner one called atlantic giant   and i added these two recently these are heirloom  giant pumpkins so this one here is called mammoth   gold it's a nice little uh color on that one big  one any of these giant pumpkins can get up to   100 pounds or so or a little more uh the trick  with these giant pumpkins they're going to   average probably around the 50 pound mark if  you just grow them like you do normal pumpkins   but you go in there and you kind of uh cull them  back to one or two pumpkins per plant that's how   you get the monsters same thing with kind of the  the giant watermelon so we've got mammoth gold   and we've got this one here called big macs so  both of those good giant pumpkin varieties another   thing on those pumpkins is it's important that  you keep that plant healthy because these things   take a long time to mature you talk about 110 120  days you got to keep that vine in good shape free   of disease free of insect problems keep it water  fertilized keep it vigorous during that whole time   so it doesn't stress they need to make a big  pumpkin that's one of the challenges with that   right i've learned that the hard way and  both of these like i said are heirlooms so   if you end a seed saving you can take your biggest  ones save your seeds and try to cultivate your own   giant pumpkin line if you want to do that  these are great for making jack-o'-lanterns   big big jack lanterns but these are also edible  it's got a pretty thick wall of flesh in there   you can freeze the meat and eat them as well so  good giant pumpkins there and you can grow those   amongst other winter squash as long as you don't  plant another sea peppo species so you could plant   uh some south anna butternut and then plant  a row with these beside them if you wanted to   you know what else we got here giant another giant  here we go you remember i brought one of these   back from the mountains uh these green stripe  kushal squash now i don't know if i can grow   them quite as big as that boy i bought them from  did but you know they can get that big oh yeah   so we got those on there good eating squash  a lot of people use them for decorations too   real good storage squash you could feed a large  family off one of those oh yeah and then we got   some more giant sunflower varieties you went  crazy with some floss yep would you believe   we sail behind sweet corn we sell more sunflowers  than we do anything as far as seeds go really yeah   sweet corn is top of the list and then sunflowers  are maybe okra after that okra tomatoes somewhere   down there but sunflowers are very very popular  anyway i got three new giant varieties these   are all op varieties open pollinated you say  open pollinate varieties and you can actually   harvest the seeds on these and eat them so we  got skyscraper mammoth and giant gray stripe   right there so they gonna feed you bees they can  give you a little shade if you want a little shade   in the garden on that kind of on the  outside road there plant your roadies   put your little garden rocking chair like you got  yeah and after the blooms uh spin off plant you   some pole beans that's right that's right this  last one here is a tomato variety i tried to   get for the last two years and just now got it we  have the chef's choice orange we've had that one   uh i had that last year i grew it really good if  you want some nice a tomato kind of looks like an   heirloom tastes like a heirloom but it's got some  hybridity to it as far as some disease resistance   hybrid that may not be a word that was closing it  was impressive he wasn't called i know he called   me out everybody would have been all right with it  anyway we know the folks that created this chef's   choice line and these are all aas winners great  tomatoes and uh so we have the orange one this is   the pink here i tried to get the black couldn't  get it but uh chef's choice pink right there   all right all right all right so last  week we talked about sweet corn jeans   and kind of um the differences between the  variety lots different varieties sweet corn   out there a lot of people just go by the name they  say man ambrosia that just sounds good i'm gonna   go with that or whatever but we kind of broke  it down the science behind it and explain the   differences between the two now this week as  promised we gonna talk about actually growing   some corn so um you know a huge question all the  time comes up is if i plant this and i plant this   will it cross-pollinate or what how do i need to  keep these from cross pollinate get that question   a lot a lot because people love to grow different  varieties of corn and it's understandable because   they so many choices to be had out there  yeah and as we said last week the only one   the only type you don't have to worry about  with cross pollination are the synergistic types   your triple sweets and your quad sweeps and if  you go to our website and hit that filter button   you can see just those synergistic varieties  anything else you're going to stagger the planting   you're not going to be able to spread  them apart far enough on your own property   for that matter unless you've got a large property  yeah miles miles miles property so you want to   stagger your plantings or go with the synergistic  a lot of people asked last week what about field   corn does it need isolating yes certainly you want  to isolate field corn from sweet corn um we kind   of dabbled in this a little bit last week things  to consider when choosing a sweet corn variety so   if you like it really really really sweet you may  want to go with some of those sh2 or the super   sweets the synergistic or those um augmented super  sweets if you want something really tender you got   that old gal whose teeth ain't in the best shape  yeah uh you want to go one of those se varieties   uh you also you know got a factor in your  harvesting and processing window if you ain't got   time to drop everything you're doing and go get  your sweet corn and take a whole day to put it up   you probably want to grow one of these sweeter  varieties where you've got you about a 10-day   window there yeah also you know we've got  the g-90s and we've got silver queens there's   old-timey varieties that have that really earthy  flavor we talked about you know that can come into   play when you want to pick what type of coconut  some people like some people like i like those   type corns and we had some people commenting that  said they like field corn better than sweet corn   they like eating roasting i'm gonna tell you now  i love me some roasted near is that hickory king   man i love that stuff put it on the grill it's  good i don't know i like it better but i do i do   like it the other thing is consider his experience  level if it's your first time growing corn   i'd probably recommend going one of the standard  varieties silver queen g90 jubilee something like   that and the reason for that is you've got a  longer growing period there they usually take   about 15 days longer to mature you've got a large  you've got a little more leeway as far as getting   enough fertilizer to them getting enough water  to them some of these super sweet variety of   stuff will amaze you at how fast they grow when  i say you could walk outside and watch them grow   you can walk my old saying is and this i love  growing corn is you can i love garden you can   actually hear at certain times you can stand out  every once real quiet and you can hear it pop hear   it growing you can leave leave on a friday and go  camping and come back and it will have growed yeah   six or eight inches or so seems like so the faster  growing ones you got to be a little more on top of   your game with getting the fertilizer to them  at the right time because you've got a shorter   growing now i don't know there's any signs to back  this up but it seems like to me these super sweets   pop out of the ground a little quicker  they do see if the soil temps right   they do seem to jerk that avalon i planted last  year and i it's what me i had a lot just me a   lot of customers stuff say i ain't never seen  a corn just get up and go like that one day   my dear too i was amazed at that you know  usually once you know they'll stay in this   kind of little stick looking stage for about  a week or so but not that one boy it took off   it germinated quick it come up quick germinated  good and quick yep um so let's get into a little   bit about corn um one thing not on my note  sheet here when you're playing sweet corn sweet   corn is wind pollinated so two of the biggest  mistakes i see people make when they plant corn   two rows about 40 foot long yeah can't get  germination that way because we know corn is   pollinated by the yeah and then the mirrors end  up looking like that old gal and hardly no teeth   that's exactly right the second thing i see is  they starve them to death yeah yeah we're going   to talk about how not to starve from the dead  but you want to plant corn in a square block if   you can there's a little bit of leeway it doesn't  have to be perfectly square but you want to aim   for a square as possible you want to try to get  three rows at least three rows side by side you   can do this on any scale you could take this  table right here which is about i don't know   uh four by five feet and you could plant sweet  corn right here you could probably get you about   i don't know 12 stalks or so in here if you just  got a small raised bed you can still plant your   sweet corn in there just try to get you three rows  stacked in there in some kind of square uh that's   going to give you the best pollination and what  you can do is if you got a really smaller plot of   it once you get your tassels forming you can walk  out there and get a little shimmy shimmy shade   corn don't lean itself well to a little bitty  garden i mean if you got a decent sized medium   garden or a large garden it does a lot better and  a little bitty raised bed garden it's not one of   the first things i would plant in that type garden  but it can be it can be done but it can be done   um so when do you want to plant your sweet  corn sweet corn is one of the first things i   kind of aim to get in the ground as far as my warm  season crops i have seen in my lifetime i've seen   sweet corn up up popping out of the ground at 20  february here yeah i ain't seen it much but i have   seen it happen yeah it's not going to happen this  year no not going to happen this year what do you   think the ideal ph is for corn hmm i don't know  might i might answer that education the ideal ph   is somewhere between 5.8 and 6.5 pretty good range  pretty good range there now if you get above seven   you can run into some some troubles yeah but  if you got that range in there that's what you   shoot for that's all your nutrients are available  you got good soil and you're ready to go grease   corn most crops most vegetables you can grow in  the garden if you're between six and six point   five you ain't pretty good yeah yeah yeah don't  get all worked up because you'll point or two off   there's some a little bit of leeway there so for  these um older varieties the less sweet varieties   you can get them germinating 55 degrees  now a lot of people have been asking   when you talk about soil temp how far deep are  you measuring the temperature and i said well   you're measuring where you're planting that seeds  when you're planting corn seeds i usually plant   mine about three quarters inch deep and that's  where i want to check the temperature yeah a lot   of people plant them a little deeper now i do too  and i tell people in the garden situation you get   by with that in a field situation they can plant  them all the way up to an inch and a half deep   no we don't well that's because we watering them  pretty strong well in a garden situation you can   handle all those variables you know to get it  up yeah so you can pop them up real quick so   you just plant them that deep anyway so you have  55 degrees for the older standard varieties for   your super sweets your augmented super sweets need  a weight that gets on up to about 60 degrees uh   for those seed spacing this is a good one  here yeah let's talk about row spacing first   row spacing yeah because i have i've done  some experimentation with this in my days   and some people might um might say that they  had different results in this but i have tried   two two foot spacing with corn and if you grow  good big healthy stalks what happens is you got   leaves all in there everywhere and your pollen's  way up here and it don't get down to your silks   real good i had that happen i've seen it happen  firsthand so i have never i haven't since then   tried to squeeze it any closer than 30 inches  yeah and i've done it both ways i think last   year i plan on throwing what kind of mood i'm in  whether i go 30 or 36 inches but 30 inches to 36   inches is standard don't deviate away from  that i can tell you that's a tried and true   row spacing right there and you can do either one  it doesn't really matter you can get by whatever   you set it for sometimes i do 30 it's according  how my plot lays off sometimes i'll do 36. i like   36 i'm kind of broad filler and i like to have me  a little room when i'm walking through there with   my peeking bucket picking you that horn is scared  of me it'll just part ways when i walk through it   you wouldn't think that extra uh six inches a  row would make a difference but i i do like uh   i do like planting it uh on three foot even uh  with my plots that works out good i can get ten   rows in there which is a heap of corn uh let's  talk so that's row space let's talk about seed   spacing and forward to that a lot of people  want to know can you transplant sweet corn   or any kind of corn and you certainly can you  do it in our 162 trays like a charm yeah we got   a little bit of tight one time and planted we we  our garden we had down the expo we got a tight   and we uh planted i moved some ambrosia corn and  then 162 trays as a backup plant and then ended   up going in there hillary and planting them a  foot apart i'm talking about seeds we're plant   placing a foot apart we put them exactly right on  top of those uh drip emitters made some fine corn   yeah so you can certainly certainly transplant  now if you just told me that for five ten years   god said you was crazy but i have done it with you  know i've seen it with my own eyes i wouldn't want   to transplant a whole heap of it i would i usually  grow ten times 300 row feet and i don't know   that i want to transplant 300 row feet of corn  but uh if you just got you a small little plot   transplant it is possible it works it works well  transplant you don't have to worry about that   55 or 60 degrees as much because you're  getting them started in a controlled   now if i'm planting with a cedar my goal on  sweet corn is somewhere in the neighborhood   of about six inches yeah yeah that's going to  vary a little bit depending on which irrigation   situation well let's touch on that  just for a minute i have not grown   corn with overheated irrigation for quite a while  now i have used drip irrigation for years for   my corn these two crops out there well let me at  least three crops there you want to make sure that   you grow you on drip tape corn watermelons and  tomatoes uh i'll concur completely with that yep   uh i i would add maybe pumpkins or winter squash  in there but you can eat it ain't as imperative   as some of the others right so if you're growing  them on drip with your sweet corn you can get by   with six to eight inch spacing because you got  all the water they need right there easy to give   it to them and you're able to put those nutrients  there when you need to that's right now if you're   not growing on drip and you rely on overhead  or mother nature i would say going closer to   12 inches is a safer bait 8-12 yeah now field corn  you definitely want to go further on that 12 corn   12 inches is good on field corn the the the drip  irrigation is just a no-brainer on corn if you   not ever use it on corn you do it one time you  won't ever grow back when even with some of these   fast-growing varieties my stalks are going to  get six seven foot tall and i've got one of them   tripod sprinklers but it don't it won't get up  that high and uh you just can't get water down   there you catch a dry spell and uh you sit here  and run a sprinkler all day long and you just   can't hardly get enough water down to them roots  right so that drip really really helps with that   so yeah i ain't i don't mind thinning corn this is  kind of a little bit of a meditation activity for   me so ah with my cedar i designed my seed plate  to plant it pretty thick i'll put my seed plate   on about four inch spacing and uh i'll plant it  thick and then i'll go once it starts coming up   i'll do me about a row a day i'll walk out there  and thin me a row and check on it talk to them   a little bit talk to it and uh get it just like  i like it some people don't like to thin it but   it's kind of a it is i've always enjoyed thinning  corn maybe they're not ready too you ready maybe   we might have that corn thinning gene not like  that a cilantro genuine all right now let's talk   about what everybody wants to know is fertilizing  you mentioned that was a big mistake it's a huge   mistake people want to starve the corn all the  time do not realize how much fertility corn takes   in and corners one of those crops if you miss  that wonder or if you stress it during certain   times you have what messed up yeah it gets stunned  it gets stunning and will hardly never recover you   got to make sure and as fast as it grows you  got to make sure it needs it's got everything   there it needs boom when it needs it okay so  before we do that let's let's let's talk about   fertilizer and pounds and stuff like that real  quick so there's our 20 20 20 right there oh   okay i'm gonna try to keep it down just one or two  cards today hopefully we got a 20 20 20 here which   means it has 20 nitrogen 20 percent phosphorous 20  potassium with corn we're really looking at that   nitrogen is what we're really really looking  at those other things are important early   we really really got to meet that nitrogen need so  the total requirements for corn growing throughout   the season the phosphorus was about half of what  the nitrogen right yeah so in this bag here which   is 10 pounds we got 20 percent nitrogen so we want  to know the total amount of nitrogen in this bag   we would take 0.2 because it's 20 nitrogen times  10 pounds is gonna give us two pounds of actual   nitrogen in this bag here so when we talk about  you need to give your corn x pounds of nitrogen   that's how you figure it out you take the  percentage multiply it by the total weight of the   bag and there you go some people call that unit  some people call it pounds it's all the same thing   it's the actual amount of that nutrient that you  put in there now if you go online and you look at   nutrient requirements for corn what you're going  to run across is a table a lot of times where it   says if you're wanting your yields to be this many  bushels you need to give them this many pounds per   acre and so forth and you'll see a table out there  that's mostly for these commercial guys so i kind   of shot somewhere in the middle there because  it is subjective what kind of soils you got   yeah you got a sandy top soil you got to put a lot  more fertilizer out and if you get some of these   high organic soils like they have up north right  and this fertilizer program i'm about to walk you   through is is relative to your soil type if you've  got soils that don't hold nutrients very well   kind of like we do you probably won't stick  pretty close to this program if you're adding   some manure and adding some other stuff and  you got good nutrient retention you might   come back off this a little bit so it's very  relative so looking at kind of the middle of the   the corn fertilizer recommendations we're  gonna go with five pounds of nitrogen   per one thousand square feet okay now people get  upset when i start talking about per thousand   square feet so look we got to simplify that a  little bit my plots which are 30 by 35 roughly   a thousand square feet which is a decent sized  plot of corn right and you're gonna let's just   assume we're going to put them on three foot row  spacing and i'm going to get 10 rows in there   so 300 row feet of corn is the same as a thousand  square feet of corn we're going to make that   assumption yes we are okay so when i give these  recommendations this is per 1000 square feet or   per 300 row feet so if you only got 150 row feet  you cut it in half you only got 100 row feet   you cut it in thirds you dig i'm digging baby  okay so let's go through this here first and   we're going to suggest the timing at which this is  done so let's start off here so we're going to do make sure everybody can see this  we're going to have basically two   two regimens here that we're going to kind of  alternate between we're gonna have our 20 20   20 and our micro boost and then we're gonna have  our chilean nitrate here which is just straight   uh organic nitrogen so when my corn plants  get up about six to eight inches tall   and that won't take long with some of these  fast growing varieties i'm going to come   in and i'm going to use my injector there's a  drip tape although you could do this overhead   you could do it mix it in a sprayer and drizzle  it alongside the row however you want to do it   but i'm going to give it two pounds of this and  one cup of this for my thousand square foot plot   boom that's when the plants are six to eight  inches tall now some people get worked up about   that ratio on the injector and all that stuff  don't worry about that that ratio on that injector   all that's doing is controlling how much water  you're chasing with this fertilizer if you put two   pounds of fertilizer in there and run it clear you  have just given your plot two pounds of fertilizer   you might give it a little more water with it  if you change the ratio but you everything you   put in that tank you assume that's delivered  on a fast setting shoes on that yeah i like   it uh run mine on fast too so when they six eight  inches tall two pounds of this one cup of this now   the next fertilization we're going to do on our  first healing and for me with that high arch   that's anywhere between 12 to 18 inches tall on  the corn and i'm gonna come in there and i'll do   uh my recommended rate for that is 10 pounds  or whole bag of this per thousand square foot   plot or per 300 row feet okay so 10 pounds this  side dress we're going to sprinkle along there   when we heal them about 12 to 8 inches tall  if you um you know think about this this is 15   nitrogen we give them 10 pounds of this we're  given 1.5 pounds of total nitrogen and this stuff   converts really quick so when you put it out you  expect to see results to net if you got water out   there on it expect to see the results the next day  and it just works easy to side dress right before   you heal kill two birds with one stone there okay  so we we did something when they're six to eight   inches tall one to 12 to 18 inches tall our next  step here might be a little bit relative for some   folks but when that corn is highly high highly  high could be different according to different   individuals right you take that little sharp girl  and how many teeth it's going to be different what   is going to be in you right right but highly high  on me that's kind of what i go by uh this is when   we do what we call laying by so a lot of people  use this term laying by around the south and what   it actually means laying by means to leave alone  so laying by refers to the last cultivation you're   going to do between your cornrows well the good  way to put that is when i go in at night time and   get my recliner afternoon got me a belly full of  supper and i lay down there that's the last words   i want to hear from her tonight because i'm going  to be laid by right there that's the ending yeah   i'm through you know heard enough yeah i haven't  heard enough of your day and everything let's lay   it by let it go so when you leave your corn alone  or you're done cultivating you lay it by lay it by   he's laid by now leave him alone that's right um  because at some point it gets too tall you can't   really get in there and or you don't want to get  in there and you're going to be damaging some if   you try to get there and do much after that so  when it's highly high we lay it by and we're   going to side dress it one more time same rate  as we did before 10 pounds of this per thousand   square foot or per 300 row feet now so that we  did it honey high we laid it by at highney high   now next thing though is when the car lay my  by a little less than highly high it just hit   me i leave mine when i don't lay mine by about  between knee high and highly high oh yeah yeah   yeah maybe yeah that's about right yeah you got  a little bit of a window there yeah and if you if   you go on a long weekend you can miss that winter  yeah yeah yeah that next thing you know you corn's   titty high yeah and uh which brings up the next  century that's right so your corn gets titty high   then we're going to go back to this right here  we're going to go back to injecting with our   20 20 28 now we're going to double the rate we did  before we're going go four pounds of this and then   one cup of the micro boost okay and then the last  one the last time i like to give mine one good   jump uh when it starts tasseling i'm gonna come in  here with another four pounds of this and another   cup of this so in total what we're saying here  if you got a thousand square foot plot of corn   and this is assuming you don't hardly  have any nutrients in your soil   a bag of this bottle of this and two bags of this  is gives you all the fertilizer needs yeah and if   you run a little short on this and you've got  some calcium nitrates you can't supplement your   calcium nitrate this right here now i would not  my first source would not be the ammonium sulfate   we have but you could but my calcium nitrate  be my second choice to supplement if you had   it laying there and you needed to use it up so  help me out here so at six to eight inches tall   we're going to give it how much total nitrogen  2.2 pounds of this so 2 times 0.2 was what point four point four okay then at 12 in 18  inches tall when we heal it we're going to give it   10 pounds of this which is  how much total nitrogen 1.5 1.5 okay and then when it's highly high we're  going to give it another 10 pounds of this per   thousand square feet which is how much nitrogen  1.5 i feel like tai tai now you give me math lists   and what is that okay and when it's titty high  we're going to give it four pounds of this four point four four times point two is  what four point eight point eight okay and then lastly when it starts testing when  we get four more pounds of this it's another 0.8 you add that up for me that's going to  be 3 and 16. so we got three it's not 22. go ahead you following me here yeah i'm getting  there oh yeah so we got one point five one point   five is three three point four you've been  hanging around alabama i got my i missed my   decimal point three point four okay plus point  eight is four point two plus another point eight   gives us five total pounds of nitrogen so we kind  of circle back around there yeah on the acre rate   it's somewhere around 180 pounds per acre um  so that's how we get to that five pounds of   nitrogen there and we do what we call spoon  feeding now some people will come in there   with some real hot slow release stuff and put  that out and let's do its thing and you can do   that fast release so the on the acre thing  of it the recommendations is 180 pounds of   units of in or pounds of end 90 which is half that  of phosphorus and then 160 pounds of potassium   now a lot of people on the robot ratio have been  posting these soil samples where they got a high   phosphorus if you got a high phosphorus load  and your ph is in a good optimal range there   you can cut back some on your on your 20 20 20 and  maybe hit it a little harder on your nitrogen to   form up some of that phosphorus the very best  crop out there to take some of that phosphorus   off your garden spot is corn by all means there's  nothing that'll even touch it so corn is if you've   got a high phosphorous load corn is a crop you  definitely need bigger one there another thing   you could do if you have access to some good  chicken litter and i love good chicken litter   but if you got access to it by all means get you  some of that and put you a hundred pounds of that   out pre-plant and that'll give you some of your  requirements all the way around there fill it in   and it'll be broken and be available when that  corn pops through there and you'll get amazing   results on that as well most good chicken litter  has somewhere around three percent nitrogen so if   you put a hundred pounds out there pre-plant per  thousand square feet that's going to give you 1.   1.5 pounds of of nitrogen that's going to release  a little different what this is but that'll be a   good a good recipe for you there yeah so i'll put  when we do the blog for this show in a week or   two we'll put this particular program on there and  your program may vary a little bit different like   he said if you got high phosphorus you don't need  as much as this uh you can go with some straight   nitrogen just keep in mind five pounds total  per thousand square feet or per 300 row feet   and you know how to calculate how many pounds  you got based on your percentages there and you   can break up your spoon feeding however you want  to that was just kind of a general template to   give you an idea of how we do it and how we like  to spoon feed them uh to keep them happy and and   not miss your window because if you if you try  to break this down just to two fertilizations   your life will miss your window a little bit so  what you're after folks is this right here when   you get through you see what that is i didn't  see it that is avalon corn right there that's   from the 2020 crop right there and that's cream  corn and i'm going to tell you folks that's   delicious stuff right there my daddy which is  83 years old that's his most favorite thing to   eat i can eat that whole bag i can eat it frozen  just about it yeah that's good stuff right here   but that's what you're after yeah  that's that's it that's the end result   you just throw that in one of them pyrex things  in the microwave with a little bit of butter   and uh it don't take long i showed  the frozen so i'm going to sew that   side there yeah you see that 20 20 on there yep a  good white i got i ain't got but a few bags of my   20 20 corn left well we don't have many other  hunt for that one i got to replenish my supply um   a few more things to talk about real quick ear  worms everybody wants to know about ear worms   um does bt work on earworms and i think a lot  of people ask this because they already got   some bt they use it on other stuff um bt doesn't  consistently work on earworms what you need to do   for your earworms is some spinosad we've talked  about this before you want to spray it on the   silks got to spray it on the silks for it to work  now in the fall when i grow corn in the fall when   the worm pressure is at its highest what i will  notice is when that corn gets about highly high   if i look down in that corn plant there i can see  the worms eating on it you need to be applying   some spinosad before that point right yeah now in  the spring you don't really have a lot early worm   pressure and you can pretty much wait until your  silks appear to do your spinosad but in the fall   and if you grow in the middle of the summer  you better keep an eye on the plants you see   some worms eating on them spray some down into  that world of the plant there in some spring   early crops are worse on worms than others i've  grown complete crops before not treating the first   time i've not had the first earworm in there  and then i've had them just about eating me up   no rhyme or reason to it that i can figure out  just some years are different you know what i   remember growing up when we used to put up corn  we'd have that smut that what they call wheat   lacoche i think is how you say it it says it's  smooth what we call it delicacy in mexico anyway   i i haven't seen any of that in years and i don't  know if it's because the drip or because i do mix   some liquid copper in with my insecticide every  now and then i haven't seen it in a while either   i hadn't thought about it but we used to see it  pretty really i don't think i want to eat none   of it no i think i'm all right um processing the  corn you showed your frozen corn there we got this   these things is kind of hard to find and  some people say well that just looks like   a toilet brush but this is a lot it's  a lot softer than a toilet brush it's   specifically designed to seal corn so get this  right here now you give miss house one of these   right here i'll put her up against anybody yeah  she's pretty good at that uh with silk and corn   so we got a corn silken brush on the side these  things you used to be able to find them everywhere   at your local hardware store they're kind of  hard to find but we got them on the website   um she you got that was creamed we last year  just cut some off we just cut it off the cob and   froze it that way and then way i've been  cooking is getting my cast iron skillet hot   and i call it skillet corn and you don't put any  water anything in there just put it in there maybe   a little butter and just kind of seared a little  bit in there it's pretty good like that yeah i   ain't messing with that right there as good as  it is no there's ain't nothing wrong with that   uh the last thing people are asking about this  when you were talking about your jimmy red last   week is processing field corn and and how that  works as far as you pick it dry you let it dry   a little longer than that and grinding it and this  could probably be a whole show but i figured you'd   give them a little bit of insight as to how  that yeah the way i do it is i let my corn dry   on the stalk as much as i can and then if i if  i have to pull it i'll let it dry a little bit   after i pull it but preferably it's going to dry  a lot better if it's out there in that open air   let it dry down pretty good then you're going to  pull it and for shelling i have bought maybe one   of them oh one of these at an antique store years  ago yeah the ones they make nowadays really ain't   worth the tape now if you find you one of them oh  and flea market flea market i bought mine up in   the mountains find you one of them and that's  what a shell was going with now grinding corn   we use the mop meal because we used to  sell those but there's several different   good manufacturers out there about the the  grinding corner and several different models so   the mop wheels are pretty good because i  like it because it uses the rock in there   when you flee market hunting for that sheller you  got to be careful you got to find an old boy that   really needs some lunch money because sometimes  these folks a little proud they know what they   got yeah and uh and they'll get you on but once  you buy you one just keep it the rest of your life   that's what i'm gonna plan on doing yeah  they don't go bad well everybody needs some   corn sheller yep let's get into some questions all  right question number one is from john mccain he   says after harvest would you leave your broccoli  and cauliflower plants somewhat chopped up on top   of the dirt to rot per no-till method well if  you i got a little bits going on right now so   if you are doing the no-till method this has been  accelerated with the amount of rain we have had   uh i just went in there with my loppers and i  cut them right the soil level just left them   right there and with all this rain we've been  having they have rotted down pretty quickly   uh if we hadn't been had so much rain i don't  know that that would have happened so fast   another thing i have done is you just take  your lawn mower in there and just shred them up   and uh i use my flail more it'll cut them you know  at soil level you're leaving all your roots in   there if you do a no-till that's the goal there uh  so yeah you can just you shred them with a mower   or if you got a little time just lop them  and chop them and drop them drop chop them   withdrawal all right cypress bayou homestead  says a first-time onion grower from seed uh   don't know when they're supposed to bulb  so they're getting a bunch of rain in   mississippi uh want to feed them and the neighbors  said you can't feed them once they start bulbing   he's a pretty good neighbor he's really right  and yeah if you planted your onions when you were   supposed to back around the first november they  get real close now to leave them alone and start   the bubbling process and they can vary sometimes  quite how much heat we have and it's triggered by   daylight we're getting close to 11 hours and it's  getting close i believe last year if i remember   correctly it was somewhere around the last week of  february does that sound right last week before we   noticed they started bubbling up a little bit and  i had fertilized mine one time after they started   bubbling and that really caused severe cases  of blight so i'm not going to do that this time   you want to shut that fertilizing off when  they start by the time they start bubbling   a lot of people want to know and i think that's  what she was asking how does she know when they   start bulking but you i i can walk i can see the  soil cracking around mine yeah yeah i can't but   i guess the best answer to that is the daylight  isn't it well yeah you know when you get if you   go you're in eight b mississippi you should be  growing short day onions which are going trigger   bulb in 10 to 12 hours probably closer between 11  and 12. uh i'd say the first of march but just be   uh is a good time you can you can see you can see  the ground cracking if you clear a little soil   around it you can tell or if you've been doing a  lot maybe you've been pulling some of them up to   eat you tell you they're starting to get a little  bit mine i got some good taste in them i do too   next question is from slim fishing i plan on  planting sugar baby watermelon cantaloupe in   my garden this year do i have to worry about  cross pollination not with those two watermelon   is a citrullus lenatas that's very good right and  yeah cantaloupe is cucurbus or cucumus mellow and   so you got two different species there so you  ain't really worried about cross pollination we   had this question today a lot of people asked  about winter squash if you got two different   species they won't cross-pollinate that's right  that's what i'm gonna do with my winter squash   pumpkin plot uh i'm gonna grow one of each oh one  thing interesting to mention we always talk about   c pepo c maximum c machado this one here is a  more rare species called sea mixta see so you   can mix the this one in with the others and don't  have to worry about cross pollination cushion   mixture uh number four here from jennifer apiary  and she says do you mind doing a video on your   flyer seeds what's the best for pollinators  honeybees now we should do a whole show on this   but i'll let her i'll let you give her a little  preview yeah we've grown pollinators in the garden   for a long time now these worlds are things out  there you can grow for your bees we actually sell   a mix or sell more than one we sell one called a  bee mix that you can plant here's the bee's knees   if you've got an area out there that's  you're not going to disturb for a while   and you want to plant a good mystery that's a good  one for you however in the garden where we like to   grow the way we like to grow our gardens we always  like to grow something that gives you a byproduct   as a cut flower as well and we love to plant  sunflowers and we love the plant zinnias and bees   absolutely love them i did a video a couple years  ago and i think i counted somewhere close to 20   bees on a single sunflower and plus if you want  to get in a tight and you need to go and cut your   wife for a flower or two you got that that's back  up so you make the wife happy and the bee's happy   at the same time so we encourage people to grow  sunflower zinnias and we got some more flowers   out there too in the garden that double up as cut  flowers i think it's just a win-win situation for   everybody i would add there's a variety that's  probably not near as popular as the xenias or the   sunflowers or some of the others called agiratum  makes a little kind of puffy looking purple flower   and the native bees not your big honey bees you  got your hive but those little tiny native bees   absolutely love it and it is the most heat  tolerant flower it's thirsty it's thirsty it   helps to have it on drip it likes water but if you  keep it watered it really really heat tolerant and   not a lot of people know about add your autumn  we got it on the side i don't plan anything   i can't pronounce well that narrows your window  there's my window down on that one doesn't it yeah   next one from nicholas lee he says i plan on  planting sweet corn and field corn this year   on drip tape this will be my first time using  drip irrigation i have the older style cedar   that attaches to the double wheel hoe and  was wondering how to use it when planting   without damaging the drip tape so just a little  background for everybody that may not know here   got two types of cedars we've got our stand-alone  gardens here and then our attachment for the wheel   hoe the standalone garden seeder has a disc  opener so it just rolls along the soil there   the cedar attachment has what they call a  shoe so it looks like this and that's what   cuts a furrow for the seed to be laid into so  that cedar attachment kind of knifes the soil   like this you can't plant directly on top  of drip tape and that because it'll just   rip it right up now the first obvious thing would  be oh let me just plant right to the side of it   of the buried drip tape but this is what i  think a fellow should do in this situation i   would and this is assuming you've got some way to  irrigate it until the corn comes up a little bit   i would plant my corn as if i wasn't going to  use drip tape and then once my corn came up i   would lay once i planted my corn i would lay my  drip tape on top of the soil right beside where   my corn is once it comes up just when you see it  and then my first healing when i come in there   i'm gonna turn that tape on you gotta have it on  so it'll lay out flat on my first healing i'll   cover up that tape boom boom done with that genius  genius that that uh i pondered on that i said i   studied on it quite a bit um all right last one  is from larry hey larry lanny lanny lenny says uh   great show uh wants to know about fertilizer  numbers 20 20 20 10 10 10. he wants to know why   we can't have fertilizer that's a hundred hundred  hundred well it also wants to know what's in these   and we're going to cover that one more time  we didn't cover it a couple times during the   show but this 20 is nitrogen the second one's  phosphorus the last was potassium there and the   reason you can't have a 80 80 80 is because  you got to make up 100 of what it is in here   so we got 20 of nitrogen we got 20 percent of  phosphorus and we've got 20 percent of potassium   that's 60 at it that other 40 is what we call  carrier and the reason that we see very few   fertilizers that are above 20 percent nitrogen  is because you've got to have a decent amount of   carrier in there to be able to spread them out so  that you don't burn your plants up if you had a 33   33 33 you'd have to be really really careful about  putting it out there and not burning up something   you know some of the commercial guys use that  yeah but your marginal air there is really close   that's the reason they don't do it is because  it gives you a decent amount of carrier there   so if you do mess up a little bit you don't kill  your plants in your home garden situation it's a   little safer bet go with something a little more  dialed down yeah just example tnt and that you got   70 percent of carrier in there makes  it a real easy product to put out there   yeah yeah you start getting i have heard of some  80 0-0 stuff before uh but uh but be careful of   that be real crank your car up on that it sure  can't all right good show lots of good stuff   about corn there if you got any more questions  about growing the corn uh definitely let us know   in the comments like i said when we get the blog  post of this we'll have that schedule there laid   out maybe with a little more politically correct  terminology than we use tonight but hopefully   everybody got that i want everybody to be thinking  about this right here this is what you have to   put you up you have you some good corn to eat  fresh and then you can put you up something you   can enjoy all winter long it's something we do  every year miss hoss could tell us how rick how   many bags you get out of that off a thousand  square foot plot no i don't know a bunch we ah   we could i normally plant anywhere a 30 by 40 is  normally what i plant per year and we have enough   to eat and uh and put up yeah i eat about two  bags a week we do so probably at least a hundred   bags or so yeah yeah now we don't play around  now when it's ready it's corn gathering and put   up time they don't nothing getting away it's  time to do that we put everything to the side   and we get her done that's right you can't play  with it now this ain't this ain't no play pretty   this is the real deal right here this is what  we're talking about work but it's well worth it   yep you have it all year yep we studied on the  whole time all right hope everybody enjoyed the   show tonight if you did give us a big thumbs  up don't forget to hit the subscribe button   ring that little bell so you get notified every  time we come out the new video and if you did   enjoy this video we got some good  corn planting videos right here   two of them i think you really enjoy make  sure you check those out take care see you

Channel: HOSS

Views: 62,411

Keywords: hosstools, growyourownfood, vegetable garden, sustainable living, homestead, gardening tools, vegetablegardenseeds, seed companies, beginner gardener, beginner garden, gardening tips, family owned business, guide to planting, best seed varieties, gardening supplies, simple gardening tips

Id: YO7XOV_q4lk

Length: 59min 25sec (3565 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 19 2021