My young daughter sleeps with a seed catalog under her pillow all winter, and it is opened to the section touting sweet corn seed.  The ears are perfectly filled out, and look good enough to eat right off the page.  As we planted corn this spring, as with all other springs in her young life, she was ready to pick it the next day.  And every year she is disappointed to learn that she has to wait for what seems like an eternity before the ears are ready.

However, now that she is old enough, I explained to her some of the things that we can do to hurry the corn along.  I also told her that there are things that can really stunt the corn’s growth, and I knew she didn’t want that.  I now have a very willing helper in the garden, at least in the corn rows.  Let’s look at some of these ideas.

Corn can be planted in rows, evenly spaced.  But our favorite way of planting it is to have one person with a shovel and one with the seed in hand.  The person with the shovel sticks it into the ground at an angle, just deep enough to put the seeds about an inch into the ground.  The seed person then tosses in five seeds, no more, no less.  Then, a foot away, the process is repeated.  I have seen our children make incredible time planting five long rows of corn in just a few minutes.

Corn doesn’t need a lot of water as it grows, but it does need more to sprout.  In fact, we like to presoak our seed overnight before planting.