Corn: Thin and Toss or Transplant?

The corn grows higher each day. 

Nope couldn't do it. I couldn't pluck out those beautiful corn plants and let them wither and die. Each seed I planted had sprouted. I owe that not only to the rich soil, but also to waiting until the weather warmed. Today was the day I had to decide what to do. My decision was to transplanted the crowded plants make my rows longer ! 

I followed these easy steps to transplant them: 

1. I watered the plants and soil for easy removal. 
2. I dug a new hole 8-12" from the last corn plant
3. carefully cut down into the soil about 5" around the corn plant for transfer
4. gently lifted the corn plant out of the ground supporting it with my hand trowel/shovel
5. carefully placed the corn plant in the hole
6. put soil around the plant
7. tamped down the soil a bit
8. watered the soil around the transplanted corn and blessed it.

I did these 8 steps with each plant I transferred. 



Every scoop of soil I dug had families of earthworms, little babies to adult size. And thankfully they all came out whole. I laid them to the side and they quickly returned to the earth. That lasagna or layering method of composting I tried last autumn/early winter, has turned that clay into moist rich nutrient laden soil that the earthworms love. You ought to try this. It is a game changer. Gardening is a breeze with good soil. Here is the link for that post, Winter Layers For My Garden

 

DeborahMoonMoen
of Little Utah Farm

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Garden ~ Soil As Soft As Cake Flour

Our garden soil looks wonderful!

This year Paul rented a rototiller for the day at Ahearns Rental on 800 W. It costs about $55. A new one cost $1500. We need it done only once a year. So it was wonderful to have a rental place in town that offered this amazing attachment for our Kabota tractor. The mix of grass clippings, chicken manure and llama beans we added all year long  got mixed into the clay and the blades cut the hard clods of dirt deep and when it was done it looked like course flour.


I made my rows  April 25, 2012. This year we had such a mild winter we were able to start earlier. the earth was so easy to work with. I enjoyed making the 3 sections of rows. The one in the foreground is for Peaces and Cream Corn. I planted 95 seeds.





I made my rows the next day.

The little green tips of corn came up one Mothers Day May 13. I was so excited !

Peaches and Cream Corn Sprout

I discovered a volunteer Wallflower and last years Catnip in one of my garden boxes. How nice to see it there.

I am planting celery, beets, parsnip, radishes, spinach, carrots, squash, pumpkin and more to mark what was in the rows I cut stakes out of a milk jug and painted them with acrylics. It was so much fun adding color to the garden.




Homemade plant stakes

Thanks for visiting Little Utah Farm. Say..How does your garden grow?
Until next time, Happy Spring !
Deborah