Corn Season

Growing corn in the garden has been hit or miss for us. If it grows at all, we find that racoons get to the ripe ears before we do. This year, we planted the corn at the end of a garden bed so we could fence it off from critters before the harvest. We did run into an issue that we still debate. The corn had gotten tall and was just starting to put ears out, when a big part of the planting got flattened. My opinion is that the corn got knocked down by a storm, whereas Maggie believes racoons were the culprit. Regardless, I drove in some t-posts and used rope to provide support to the damaged stalks. I then strung a temporary electric fence around the corn using poly wire.

The poly wire seems to have kept the racoons out as the ears developed. While the damaged stalks did not fully recover, we have been able to harvest a couple of dozen ears. Fresh corn is one of the treats of August. Roadside stands have popped up overnight, selling sweet corn. It would be nice to get a few more ears to enjoy as summer begins to wind down.