Corn: Sweet Corn, Popcorn, and Ornamental Corn
Planting, Growing, and Harvesting Corn
You’ll find everything you need to know to plant and grow corn in the accompanying table’s tabs:
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- How many corn stalks to plant
- Growing conditions for corn
- When to plant corn
- How to plant corn
- Watering, fertilizing, and tasseling corn
- Companion plantings for corn
- How to harvest, store, and use corn
Growing Corn
Corn is a warm-season annual vegetable. First noticed by European explorers to the Western Hemisphere and now a worldwide staple, corn forms tassels at its stalk tip and several ears midway up the stalk, which can reach 9 ft. (2.7 m) tall on many cultivars.
Pollen from the flowering tassel, which is carried by the wind, pollinates sticky, silky threads on each ear of corn. Each of the threads connects to an unfertilized kernel, and the ear develops as many kernels as silks that are pollinated.
Shaking the stalks while they are in tassel, or “tasseling,” produces fuller ears of corn. In small-space gardens where corn cannot be grown in a self-pollinating block of closely spaced plants, tassel your corn to pollenate every kernel of each ear grown.
Corn varieties include sweet corn, field corn, popcorn, and ornamental corn. Each is available in early, midseason, and late cultivars, bearing kernels of many different colors and sweetnesses.
Corn Plant and Care Guide
How Much to Plant
Allow 10–15 plants per household member.
How to Plant
Seed germinates in 7–10 days. Sow seed in full sun in spring when soil warms to 50–90°F (10–32°C); sow separate beds of early and late cultivars for a sustained harvest.
Sow seed 1–2 in. (25–50 mm) deep, 4–6 in. (10–15 cm) apart, thinning to 12–18 in. (30–45 cm) apart, in at least 4 rows 2–3 ft. (60–90 cm) apart, forming a square or rectangle for good pollination. Plant successions 3–4 weeks apart.
Avoid planting different cultivars nearer together than 20 ft. (6 m), or in rows perpendicular to prevailing winds, due to cross-pollination.
Best Conditions for Growth
Growing temperature: 50–95°F (10–35°C). Requires at least 6 hours of sunlight daily.
Soil Type and Fertility
Moist, well-drained soil. Fertility: Rich. 5.8–6.8 pH. Prepare soil at least 18 in. (45 cm) deep.
Proper Care
Moderate. Keep evenly moist. Apply ample water during the ear silk-and-tassel-development stage.
Tassel corn by shaking ripe tassels against one another to help fertilize small plantings.
Fertilize with 10–5–5 formula or well-rotted manure when stalks reach 12 in. (30 cm) tall; repeat when 30 in. (75 cm) tall.
Cultivate. Corn earworm susceptible.
Pairing Recommendations
Beans, cucumbers, gourds, peas, potatoes, pumpkins, and squash.
Maturity, Picking and Gathering
60–100 days. Cut ears from stalk when silks turn brown and kernels yield a white milky fluid when pierced. Immerse immediately in ice water; chilling prevents sugars from turning to starches and preserves texture.
How to Store and Preserve
Fresh in vegetable keeper of refrigerator for 2–4 days; blanched, cut from cob, and frozen, 3–6 months. Late-season varieties have larger kernels, sweeter flavor, and more vigorous growth habits than early varieties.