Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: min200 on February 03, 2011, 12:37
-
When do you sow corn? Not sweetcorn the type you use for bread etc? I am going to sow a large patch with it this year as an experiment to give the chickens the corn heads and the rabbits the straw or use it on the run floor etc?
I have a large sack of it here but no idea when to sow it!!
-
When do you sow corn? Not sweetcorn
????? There is only one kind of corn that I know of and that is sweetcorn (maize).
Robbo.
-
Ok then its probably wheat! Just been given a sack of it. Nothing on the sack itself though. Its the same as the "corn" you give to chickens as a treat.
-
field corn and sweetcorn are basically the same thing - obviously variety makes some cobs taste sweeter, but even a supersweet variety cob will lose its sugar content as the corn ages. The difference is that field corn will also grow quite tall (if you've never seen a field full of corn before) and also have much broader leaves. The cobs are harvested after the kernels lose water and tenderness, so that means they will have a much longer season and be harvested much later.
So, to sow corn - I've seen farmers lay black plastic sheeting in fields in mid April-ish (sorry, can't remember when exactly) with sowing holes where the seed is dropped - the black plastic helps to warm up the soil during the day, and slowly releases the heat at night which would be helpful for earlier sowings when frosts are still a problem. I'm sure the corn was sown a bit earlier than garden sweetcorn ... perhaps they a bit hardier and can take the odd frost? I sow my sweetcorn about mid-late April-early May-ish indoors depending on the weather.
-
I think paintedlady has missed the point!
min - I think this is what you want, it says usually March:
http://www.brockwell-bake.org.uk/plant_wheat_teachers.pdf
-
Thanks for all the replies!
DD you have hit the nail on the head yet again mate. I really dont know what I would do without you lot! :D :D :D