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Letter Re: Corn: Our Best Ally Against Starvation
We have begun our corn harvest. We just finished canning the corn from 2 rows of hybrid sweet corn. We planted two rows 100 feet long. We made approximately 400 ears of corn. From this we ate all we wanted and canned 39 quarts and 12 pints whole kernel. We don’t can any cream style, because it doesn’t do well. Many times the corn has a musty taste. We put it in jars rather than the freezer to protect it from a grid down scenario. We gave 20 ears to a local widow, and 48 ears to a local gentleman in his mid 80’s.
I plant my corn seed in pairs about 6 to 12 inches apart and ½” deep. They can be a little deeper, but not much closer to the surface of the soil. I drop my seed by hand. It doesn’t take long once you develop a method. I can drop a 200 foot row in about 10 minutes. I usually plant a couple weeks before the last frost date, because it takes awhile for the seed to sprout. The frost may “bite” the young corn plant, but not kill it. A hard freeze is another matter. The soil temperature should be 55 deg. F. and rising. Corn requires a lot of fertilizer. I place 13-13-13 in the row and mix with soil and then drop my seed and cover them with soil. When the corn approaches 2 feet in height, I apply another band of 13-13-13 by the plants and cover with dirt along with any grass or weeds that escaped any previous plowing.
We are growing 3 more types of corn, most of which is drying on the stalk in the field. We purchased some Golden Bantam heirloom variety corn from an Internet seed business, Southern Exposure Seed Exchange. I purchased this seed because there was no local source for non-hybrid heirloom sweet corn seed. After planting and eating a little, I highly recommend it. It has a very large starchy kernel. It is unique because the kernels are extremely easy to bite off the cob when cooked due to the shape of the kernel and the spacing of the attachment points to the cob. This corn would be easy to bite with dentures. It also has two other things that I like. The stalks are very short when mature (5 feet), which makes it wind resistant and it requires a lot less moisture to grow a 5 foot stalk compared to an eight foot stalk. I’m saving all this seed for future planting. The only negative is the ears are rather small.
I’ve planted 20 rows 200 feet long of heirloom Yellow Dent corn. I purchased this at a local feed store. I was also given some by a neighbor. These corn stalks have reached a height of 8 feet and have huge ears, usually two per stalk, due to all the rain we’ve had this year. I plan to use this as feed for my geese and ducks, for grinding into corn meal, and extra feed for my herd of donkeys.
Source: http://www.survivalblog.com/2013/07/letter-re-corn-our-best-ally-against-starvation.html
