I don't always plant sweet corn right before a good rain. But when I do, that's alright, alright, alright.
So today we're going to be planting some Avalon
triplesweet
Sweet corn here in the dream garden with our Hoss garden seeder. We've got some rain coming in in the next hour or so
Pretty close supposed to rain all afternoon into the night a little bit
It's been dry around here haven't had any good rains
In about a month so we can get this corn planted right before that rain comes in man that's always a good thing
Should mean for a good germination and a good stand of corn. If this is your first time on our channel
Welcome go ahead and hit that subscribe button down below and that bell button
So you get notified every time we come out with a new video and if you're a frequent viewer of the channel
It's always good to have you back
So here's where our sweet corn plot is going to be this spring or at least our first sweet corn plot
We may end up planting another plot or two
As the spring progresses, but we've got this plot right here setup. We've got our drip buried there
These plots are 30 by 35
We've got 11 rows in here that we're going to be able to plant we've got those rows spaced three feet apart, which is ideal
Spacing for sweet corn we did come in here add a good bit of that compost
that gin trash compost
got the soil a lot more workable and
it's still a little chunky cuz some of that winter rye root mass hasn't broken down completely yet, but
It should once it gets real hot that stuff will start burning up pretty quick from talking to our customers over the years
Right behind Tomatoes sweet corn is the most popular crop
Grown in backyard vegetable gardens and for good reason, it's some good good stuff. Sweet corn is synonymous with summertime
as summer gets here
You've got some fresh ears of homegrown sweet corn
Just doesn't get much better than that and with sweet corn being so popular we get a lot of questions about
The scale on which you can grow sweet corn how small of a plot can you grow of sweet corn and it'd still be successful.
Well sweet corn is wind-pollinated so you have to grow a certain amount to get good pollination to get good full ears.
Now the general theory out there is you want to plant at least
three rows
Side by side if you can plant these in more of a square plot, that's always better
The last thing you want to do is plant, you know one or two just long
Rows of corn because you're not going to get very good pollination. You need those rows or those plant stacked side by side
To get good pollination. So yeah, you can grow a pretty small plot
I've seen people do it in raised beds before but you want to at least have three rows or three stalks
Side by side there and try to make the plot
As square as you can or the the planting of sweet corn as square as you can I know everything is not ideal
Everybody's working with different layouts of land, but if you can get it as square as possible
You're gonna have better look and that's one of the main reasons why we designed our dream garden with these
Relatively square plots there not perfectly squared because it's 30 by 35
But if you could have a 40 by 40 plot of corn man, that would be really really good
So we try to base our garden design
Based on kind of a square plot because things just seem to do better that way
But just work what you got now the variety we're gonna be planting today is called
Avalon and this is a white
triple sweet
corn variety
So on a previous video we did a little poll a little vote as to which of these triplesweets
I was going to grow this year and it was a really close
vote, but the Avalon won out by a hair. Dad grew that Honey
Select last year, which is a yellow triplesweet and it was really really good
So I've got high hopes for this Avalon here and really excited to try it
I haven't grown a white sweet corn in quite a while, it's probably been 3 or 4 years
since the last time I grew some white sweet corn, which was Silver Queen then but never grown a white triplesweet and
looking forward to really
really tasty corn come summertime and sweet corn varieties is one of those things especially with the old timers when somebody finds
Something they really like they just kind of stick to it and they swear by it
They won't plant anything else whether it's Silver Queen or
G90 or merit or Silver King
a lot of people get hung up on one variety and that's all they'll plant but I really encourage you to
Experiment with some of these other varieties try one of these triplesweets one year or try, you know
a se variety like ambrosia or bodacious or incredible
If you've never tried one of those before just branch out try some different varieties. I try to grow a different variety
Every year if I can just because I like I like to try different things like to see how different varieties grow
Like to see how they taste and all sweet corn is good. None of it's terrible
but uh
You know do some experimentation you might find a new variety you like more than that old variety you've been growing for years
so let's head on over to the barn and
calibrate us a seed plate
For this Avalon triplesweet corn here, and then we'll be ready to plant. Now when we're talking about planting corn
Your seed size is going to vary
Pretty significantly depending on how sweet the corn is. So when you take a
Variety like a field corn variety like Jimmy Red or Hickory King or Trucker's Favorite
Those seeds are going to be your biggest corn seeds
Then your standard varieties like your Silver Queen are going to be a little smaller than that
Your se varieties like your ambrosia your your peaches and cream going to be a little smaller than that and then these really sweet
Varieties are going to be even smaller than that. So let's take a look here
and I should have brought some of the other seeds just for comparison.
Let's get this open here
Some of these seeds
So those are pretty small compared to like a silver queen
G90, a merit, or any other standard variety.
Now we need to see which seed plates gonna work well for us and we're probably going to have to customize
One of these plates so we've got our number three plate here, a number four plate, a number five, and our number six.
Usually I go with this number four plate for my se
Varieties like ambrosia stuff like that and I'll have to drill out these holes a little bit
So let's start with a number four and see where we get there.
So the first thing we want to do is try to lay these seeds flat in these holes right here
And make sure none of them are going to get stuck on us
and we can wiggle those around it looks like
That there it's pretty dang good
try a few more just to be sure.
You want that seed to be able to lay flat in that hole there without getting stuck
wiggle them around
Yeah, so that number four plate that stock number four plate is going to work pretty good for us now
this has four holes in it and
That means take 19 inches divided by 4 and that's going to give us
About a four and a half inch spacing something like that, which would be good for this corn
We may thin it out a little bit but always like to plant it thicker
And then thin it out as opposed to
Planting it too thin now most often times
You will have to modify these plates a little bit and drill out these holes
And we've showed you how to do that on some previous videos. It just so happens
This one right here is gonna work just right for us
That's just kind of luck of the draw sometimes
But if you do have to make those holes bigger, it's not a big deal at all. You can do that
You could even take if you wanted it closer
Than say this spacing here take this number three plate
make those holes bigger and that's gonna push it about a three inch spacing or you could
take this number five plate, which is a little thicker
Drill out those holes
So lots of different options there depending on how far apart you'd like to plant your corn
If you don't want to plant it this close if you like your corn more you know closer to 12 inches apart
You can take some tape put it on the bottom sides of these holes right here
clog up
Two of those holes and that's going to put you on closer to an eight or nine inch spacing so lots of different options here
that you can do with these seed plates, but
the
effectiveness of the garden seeder and precisely and accurately planting these seeds is going to have a lot to do with how well
You calibrate your seed plate and making sure your seed plate is going to work good for you.
Alright, so we've got our garden seeder here and the first thing I got to do is take this
Other plate out of here
Last time we use this we planted them beans
We'll use that modified number three plate there.
I'll put my number four plate in here that's going to work just right this Avalon corn
Get my spacer in there and my brush
And my wing nut here
And I'm gonna make sure my depth is set
Right, so your depth gauges are right here
And this is your adjustment knob and I want to put this on about an inch or so
3/4 of inch to an inch, so we'll set it right there
We just need to pour some corn in here
I've got a pound I've actually got two pounds
Not sure how much it's going to take the plant this whole plot, but I want to make sure I got plenty.
Now I won't fill it up all the way the first time
got to make sure everything is running right and then we can always stop it at the end of the row and
Fill it up again. And the great thing about this garden seeder is because with these rolling disc openers here
They're not going to cut into our drip tape and we can plant directly on top of this drip tape this buried tape here.
So you can see the tape right there and these discs are just going to roll right over the top of that tape.
And make a little furrow there put that corn seed down and this chain here is going to cover-up
That seed if you were using a shoe opener, which is like a little knife that slices into the soil
You can't plant directly on top of tape like this because it would cut the tape but these discs
Are not sharp enough to cut that tape
But they do make a nice little planting furrow for our seeds and we'll get them covered up with a chain there.
Alright, alright, alright
We got that done right in time
Get some clouds coming over the sky got a little cool breeze coming in
We're gonna get some rain shortly.
Now if we weren't about to get some rain what I do is I turn on that drip tape
And I'd let it run all night just to soak that seed bed there and get some real good
germination that way but with the rain coming in
Hopefully it'll keep this soil moist for a few days till that corn can germinate
if not
I'll turn on that drip tape and keep it moist
Until our corn starts popping up if you're growing sweet corn out there in your garden this year.
Let me know how big a plot are you planting and let me know what color corn you like
Do you like white corn, yellow corn, or bicolor corn?
we like it all here and just you know grow a different one every year it seems
I'll put some links below to all our sweet corn varieties. You can check those out and also some links to our garden seeder
So you can grab one of those if you'd like if you enjoyed this video
Give me a big thumbs up and if you did like this one check out these couple right here
I think you'll really enjoy those as well. We'll see you next time.