Corn

This is my first year growing corn. It is absolutely fantastic to me that in two months a small kernel grows into an eight-foot-tall plant producing corn on the cob whenever we want it. I roasted some in our fire pit. Yummy!

I have 12 plants in a 2'x4' section of this planter box, which has only 6" of soil depth. With the plants so close together, they have pollinated each other just fine. I haven't counted how many ears I've harvested, so I'll track that next year.

I don't know if I'm waiting too long to harvest, but this corn hasn't been particularly sweet.

In July, we had a few nights of windstorms. After the first night, several stalks were bent over to the ground. I grabbed my daughter's nylon jump rope, wrapped it once around the corn (not too tight or too loose), and secured the ends to my chain link fence. The wind didn't flatten the corn after that. The yellow line in the picture is the jump rope.

The problem I'm having now is aphids. I spray them off with the hose, but they seem to multiply anyway. I'll probably harvest the rest of the corn, pull out the stalks, and let them dry to use as a Fall decoration for my front porch.

Buggy Buddies

I introduced a groundcover called Moss Rose to a container in my yard two years ago. These flowers produce seeds like crazy, and they started popping up in one area last year, and this year they are all over the south and west sides of my yard. They are easy to pull out and I've discovered they don't require watering. So until I can plant all my beds, I'm letting moss rose fill in. They come in white, pinks, pastels, bright colors, yellows, oranges, etc. I am loving the splotches of color they randomly create.


On the yellow and orange flowers, I've found some cool bugs. Do you see the praying mantis on this picture? I love finding these guys everywhere. They blend in particularly well on the Moss Rose. (Click on the picture to see a bigger version. It's kind of hard to see details on these small photos.)









My favorite find was this green bee. I've only seen them in the morning hours before it gets really hot. That may be because these little flowers close up when it warms up.







These bees buzz like flies and fly like flies. They can't sit still for more than two seconds and then they dart around, not like the slower pattern of bees. But I unmistakably saw pollen on their back legs, and they have that long bee body.





I thought I had discovered a new insect. But alas, they are on the internet. The genus is Agapostemon--Metallic Green Bee. 13 species have been identified in the Americas, but none have been recorded in Provo, so maybe I'll pass that information along. I hope they stick around for a while. Green is my favorite color!

Scarlet Runner Beans

One of my favorite finds last year is the Scarlet Runner Bean--Phaseolus coccineus. They are an annual that produces scarlet red flowers with heart-shaped leaves that look beautiful to fill in a trellis. I grow them on our chain-link fence. They like to grow 12-20 feet tall, so I have to wind them around and all over my four-foot fence. These photos were taken a week ago, and the plants have filled in the fence considerably since then. In the late summer and fall, they grow long bean pods that are very tender and sweet to eat. If you let the pods dry, you can harvest the legume and use like any dry bean. I planted enough beans to freeze for the winter. My family loves them!

The seed packet warns against planting in the same spot as the previous year to avoid disease. Once established, they need to be watered when the top two-inches of soil are dry. I have buried a 1/4" soaker hose hooked to my automated drip irrigation system, and most of the plants have done fine. When I planted, I soaked the beans in water for about an hour before placing them in the ground, and I was able to transplant the 7"-tall seedlings to better space out the plants that had sprouted. (I don't like just thinning. I prefer spreading.)