How To GROW CORN! (Small Farm)

well hello welcome to the max channel we are actually working in the garden today you see our corn you see all our silage tarps and you see Miz mangle way back there doing some fertilization of cucumbers and getting on to Jennings at the same time today we're gonna talk about the corn though why some people score not germinate so they'll plant it and say me and I'm missing this spot this spot that spot why is it not germinating ours the seeds bad and then we're gonna talk about okay so we've got them at this point what do you do now corn is a nitrogen grabber it's a thief of nitrogen it loves nitrogen it is a grass so it wants to grow and you want to give it the atmosphere they won't grow so today's video is all about [Music] okay so just like we said in the intro we are actually doing a video on corn now corn the reason people see corn not germinate are quote-unquote germinate well we think we have bad seeds because you maybe plant your corn too early corn likes very warm Seoul tends to be kind of like sweet potatoes for us it seems like they want to grow in the 65 75 85 degrees come here Jay 85 degree temperatures they wants warm good soul now the other thing about corn is it wants to grow tight with each other so as it germinates and yen as it gets taller it needs itself to pollinate needs other the cross-pollination with the rose and we'll talk more about that as as the weeks and months go ahead so the reason we may not be germinating is maybe we're not putting the seed close enough together maybe the temperatures are not quite right maybe you don't have the seeds buried at a good depth and these be kind of melded up around it so you see we planted our very tight basically on 10 inch Center it's really very very tight tighter than what some people mostly do but we wanted it very time and you see a lot of the germination really happened we had no problem with germination now here's what I did to prep this Solway silage tarp videos are always fun with kids so what we did with prep this this is why it probably germinated better than most when we come in and did this we pulled the stylish tarp back then we come in and put chicken bedding which is nitrogen rich put in cottonseed meal which was nitrogen rich and then also we pretty much meld it up next the row with high quality table salt now let's think about that for a second we put tons of nitrogen we've had good quality soil so there's the germination rate it's looking great plus it's very very warm so now germination is done what what's our next step how do we keep this corn from drop coop the corn from dying how do we keep it from falling over how do we keep a good pretty stalk all the way through the season to make beautiful ears of corn well okay so with corn you want to feed it not just when you start it not just as it's fishing to come to the end unlike most vegetables it likes to be fed now we try to do as much non GMO seed corn you could find it's hard to find a non GMO or heirloom corn but we managed to find some we then we have to use some corn that's local that's a sweet corn so we've got a mix of it all throughout here with different rows now here's the kicker though when we do the sweet corn and when we plant it we're throwing that nitrogen down with cottonseed meal and chicken fertilizer now as it's right here to this point so let's go back and look at it we have gotten to a point where we do a heavy heavy fertilization organic fertilizer what we come through and we'll put more cottonseed meal pretty much all through these rows that's what the dart the lightness is now and this is not bad quality soil this is where that cottonseed meal and that fertilization was already there so you see the topsoil is the dark and then the light is all the the nutrients we've been adding to it well guess what we're officially we're first add fish emulsion all the way down these roads and then we're gonna come back and put cottonseed Miller up site so we're putting a fast rapid release nitrogen in the soil which is the fish emulsion and then we're gonna put the cottonseed meal which tends to be a little bit more of a slow release another item is a blood meal you could use blood meal it's a very good slow release of nitrogen it's kind of costly so we use fish emulsion kind of like we've read in our books back years ago where they used to bury fish cut fish and bury them all the way underneath the cornrows well but then we really focus on putting you know every two to three weeks we're checking its in if we need to add more or make sure the leaves are not Wilton we're making sure this corn can thrive because it needs a lot of nutrients to grow corn that I can find and my corn especially I might be a bad girl but that's what it seems like to meet it to get it on up let's get some let's get some thickness to the stalks and you need to go and push them the heavy nitrogen to it so we're gonna spray it with fish emulsion first then we'll come through with cottonseed meal and that's just two good tips that we use here on the farm for now as we get closer to the time where they start getting stocks up we'll talk about pollination cross pollination and then we're going to talk about self pollination less pollinate in the corn so we'll take pits from others and put it on the other if we need to because we want to make sure those ears are full and thick so it's okay you don't need to set it up like the rest of your garden it doesn't need to be you know 30 inch beds with a 12-foot walk away you need to set it up you know a 2 or 3 inch bed with a 10 foot 10 second I mean 10 a 10 foot two foot 10 inch walkway and then basically from that 10 inch walkway each row starts look again look at the pollination okay I mean the germination of hath and then as we talk about germination then we talk about pollination pollination coming a little further in their maturity basically but as they get taller they're going to need each other to make those kind of corn that we want the big kernel corns because one will feed the other with cross-pollination so just make sure when you plant plant on tight plant them together plant them in good quality soil with good nitrogen being added to it on a pretty routine basis so again hope this little video helped just a good quality video about how corn needs to be warm when you're trying to germinate it you need to make sure if you if you're doing a smaller section of gram you can even soak your corn there's nothing wrong with that I don't soak mine just because it's bigger rows but you can soak it if you're doing a smaller patch remember playing it in a square because it has to pollinate across each other so don't just put rows out of corn because that won't work either and just make sure you have a nitrogen rich soul so chicken fertilizer blood meal fish emulsion cottonseed meal all of it all those things are very good for nitrogen just show you how far this goes basically this is a one gallon mixer basically and I used I used to prove out four ounces or so of the fish emulsion in one of these and then then pretty much fill it up with a gallon I went through about six gallons so about 24 ounces or so that's not a lot when you buy fish emulsion for about 20 20 to 25 bucks for a gallon and when you fertilize that that's a score awesome that's a lot of rows about 12 rows hope you enjoy this video hope that helps own your corn and hint for this season to try to do tons of it thank you so much god bless happy home Sandra [Music]

Channel: The Mac’s

Views: 6,918

Keywords: homesteader, homestead, homesteading, farm, farmer, farming, the macs, the mac's, sustainable, agriculture, prepping, how to farm, how to homestead, what is homesteading, joel, permaculture, roots, chickens, family milk cow, milking, raised beds, hugelkultur, growing corn, how to grow corn, vegetable garden, can i grow corn, corn

Id: _B1N_AMz01g

Length: 7min 58sec (478 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 14 2020