The ground is heavy and wet. When I awoke this morning and pulled up the weather radar and forecast for the day, initially I was heartened. There was solid rain to the east of me, but nothing to the west. With prevailing winds generally out of the west I smiled for a minute, until the “next 6 hours” loaded and played, and I saw that the rains were moving to the west. Slowly.
It took less than an hour for them to make their way to my yard. I did get out before they started, working my way through the area I am going to do a small isolated corn grow-out, turning the soil, rouging out weeds, and working compost into it. If Corbin and I ever manage to get rid of the walnut tree this area of the yard will get nice full sun for 90% of the day and even with the shade has been fairly productive in the past. At the far northern end of it I will put a few bean towers. I can fit in 100+ corn plants which is enough to expand my seed supply of this type, as well as preserve the genetic diversity of the seed.
But moving even this amount of soil, with how heavy it is, is causing my back to twinge. No sciatic pains yet, but I had forgotten to take any anti-inflammatories, and the rains were starting, so for the time being I will leave the soils where they are. If the rain stops I will try to get this small area planted and hopefully make it out to the Ness farm this evening. Even if the ground is too heavy to work we should be able to string the pea trellises.
Does the walnut tree produce for you ? What kind of walnuts are they ? corn is pollinated by wind… do you have any other corn growing around you ? I can’t grow corn because I am surrounded by frankenpollen.
The Walnut tree produces black walnuts. There are tons of black walnut trees around here and honestly, what this tree does best is attract tree rats and shade the garden, which are two things I dont need right here. There are no other corn growers within a few miles of my house. On top of that, the corns I grow are all short enough time to tassel that mine is mature usually before the Frankencorn is more than knee high. The places where crossing would be a real issue I make sure mine is in early enough.
Would there be a chance maybe you would have some black walnuts I could stick in the ground here ? I sure would appreciate it.
In the fall there is. For the rest of the summer it is going to be weeding them out of the gardens from where squirrels buried them last fall. I would say that the squirrels forget them, but in my yard’s case, the dead squirrels don’t retrieve them.