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Do you want to grow corn in your own garden? We'll tell you what to watch out for when sowing maize and give you practical tips on how to grow it.
Maize sown in the garden has nothing to do with the fodder maize in the fields. It's a different variety - the sweet sweet corn. The corn on the cob is ideal for cooking, is eaten out of hand with salted butter, grilled or the grains from the cooked corn on the cob are eaten as a salad with cucumbers and peppers. By the way, popcorn requires special varieties, namely popcorn or puffed corn that is rich in water.
Maize: this is how sowing works in the garden- Maize, or more precisely sweet maize, is sown directly in the bed from mid-April to mid-May, depending on the weather and the region.
- In smaller gardens, sowing in blocks with a grid of 45 centimeters has proven itself.
- In larger gardens, sow corn in rows 60 centimeters apart and 15 centimeters in the row.
- Sow three centimeters deep and separate the corn to 30 to 40 centimeters.
Sow the maize or sweet maize from mid-April to mid-May, depending on the weather and the region. As with the sowing of beans, the soil temperature for maize should be constant at more than 12 to 15 degrees Celsius. Let the seeds soak in water overnight, then they will germinate after a little over a week.
In larger gardens, sow sweet corn in rows 50 to 60 centimeters apart. The individual seeds are a good 10 to 15 centimeters apart within the row. After germination, separate the plants to around 40 centimeters. You can harvest the corn on the cob from July to September, depending on the variety.
Corn sowing in a square
Corn is pollinated by the wind. Therefore, in the garden, sowing in squares with an even grid and short rows has proven to be more effective than sowing in long rows. The grid, i.e. the row or plant spacing, is 45 to 50 centimeters. Separate the seedlings at this distance. The plants should be of a variety for pollination to work safely.
Sweet corn is quite hungry. Improve the soil for the plants with a shovel of ripe compost and a handful of horn meal per square meter. Remember that most varieties of corn grow tall and shade the neighboring beds. It is best to sow it on the north side of the vegetable garden so that it does not look like a parasol. A sunny location is ideal.
In cooler regions, you can grow the grains indoors in small pots from mid-April and plant the frost-sensitive, young maize plants in the garden in mid-May. Direct sowing in the bed from mid-April is possible if you then cover the rows with foil.
The most important post-sowing care measure for maize is clearly weeding in order to keep the seedlings from competing. If you want to avoid this, you should mulch the bed, for example with dried grass clippings. Simply spread a thin layer of this around the plants. As soon as the corn is about knee high, fertilizer is applied. This is usually the case around mid-July. Sprinkle some horn meal on the ground in the root area of the plants. Maize is one of the drought-tolerant plants. However, if you water in good time, especially in the summer months when it is dry, you can look forward to a better harvest.
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