I love growing corn … just for its sheer size! It thrives in the warm moist conditions of our sub-tropical summer and the images I am showing you here are when the plants have reached an important stage of development.

You can see on the top the plants have thrown out some male flowers… and they’re full of pollen. When there’s a bit of breeze about… these shed masses of fine pollen which floats down towards the ground… some of it, of course is intercepted by the fine silks of the female flowers below… each one of these fine silky structures is attached to what will be an individual corn kernel on the developing cob inside.

And that’s why it’s so important… when you’re planting corn… to plant them in a block… so that each of these developing cobs has access to lots of pollen from above… When you plant in single rows … the silks are exposed to far less pollen… resulting in irregular pollination and less kernels on your cobs.

But there are some other vital things to keep in mind at this stage. One is fertilizing. Corn is a greedy crop and needs a good feed now to see these cobs right through to harvest… so you need to head up and down the rows and spread a little blood and bone and chicken manure.

It’s also critical that these plants are kept moist while the cobs are developing so that you get plump sweet juicy cobs… so water them deeply and regularly and cover the soil surface with a deep layer of mulch to help hold moisture in the soil.

Corn is such a rewarding crop to grow. Click Here for more tips on how to plant sweet corn.