THREE SISTERS

[Chipper Chicken]

Apply by pouring a sm amt in palm of hand and rub on bare skin. 

We found we needed it when planting the corn in the wooded area with the winter squash. 

I bet it smelled nice, how effective was it?

 

[Fluffnpuff]

Painted mountain with tassel

I didn't take any pictures of the off the rack two year old seed, It came up so sparsely, maybe 15 plants out of 16 OZ of seed I'm not inclined to take its picture.

Real happy with the rest, but I need to put a LOT of fish on that painted Mountain!

Lookin' good Chipper. That was pretty close to how high mine were when it first started tasseling. The breed is just so short it's hard not to second guess yourself or assume something is wrong.

 

[Chipper Chicken]

Fluffnpuff,

Thanks, You really saved me from going crazy there! I guess I didn't read or didn't remember the size on their website, I don't think it was on the package either. I thought it was our clay soil tying up all the nutrients as we hadn't added any amendments in that spot. I looked for my squash today but didn't see any, may have been old seed too. I did find at least one snap pea, ha!

 

[Chipper Chicken]

BObs red Mill ???? I will definitely look later today when I'm at the store!!

I bought it in bulk, but I'm pretty sure they have it packaged too.

 

[Chipper Chicken]

A friend of mine gave me some blue corn seed to plant.  This is corn that his family has been growing in the SW (mountains of New Mexico, I think he said) for a long, long time to make tortillas out of.  I am moving to WI and am going to try to grow it next summer.  

You all seem to have some experience with growing that kind of corn, so anyone have any advice for me to try to get this to work?  

Is there any special soil prep that I should do?  I do plan on isolating it to prevent cross-pollination.

I'm sorry, somehow I missed your post. I'll try and explain what I did. These are the pictures of the Blue Hopi I just posted yesterday. It's pushing 8' tall, it's kinda hard to see it, but that's a 3' yardstick leaning against the stalk.

I got my Blue Hopi seed from Sustainable Seed Co this last spring and planted maybe a month ago. I live between the Williamette Valley and the lower foothills of the Cascade mountains in Oregon. I am about at 150' above sea level. Altogether a pretty mild climate. Just rains here for 9 months it seems. I planted on the site of an 6+ year old (purchased, we don't have cows) dairy compost pile. I hilled up parallel rows, about a foot apart, running north- south and covered them with black plastic. I then let the plastic warm the soil up for a day or two before I cut slits in the form of X's (about 3" long each way) and planted 2-3 seed per hole. I was going for a block style planting as it wasn't a huge area and would be able to reach through from one direction or another. If you have enough for a large patch you'd definitely want better spacing. I would like to know how your friends do it too.

Until my hose got run over by a lawn mower, I was watering 2 hours at a time, once every three days on a timer. Then for a week it got no water except rain. I have not put any other food on it. I noticed it is starting to tassel up today (actually yesterday, but I keep odd hours, so it's still my "day" lol!)

I isolated all of my corn varieties by over 100', the closest to the blue is the golden Bantam, it's maybe 130' and has a building between them.

I don't know if you saw my remarks about two year old seed I planted, but for whatever reason that corn, a hybrid off the rack white and yellow strain, did not germinate well at all. Ask your friends if their seed is good for two years, or see if you can get fresh from them next year. What a special gift! Wow. I'm a wee bit envious.

Oh yes, I just remembered. Before I put a lawn type sprinkler on a timer on it, I had laid out a soaker hose under the plastic in the"valleys", but there was some little issue with it and it didn't work quite right, so I went with the sprinkler instead. A soaker is a great idea, I just didn't have time to mess with it.

 

[Arielle]

Quote: I'm sure hoping , or is that "Hopi'n" that you get a bumper crop!!

Quote: Lasted until the sun started to set and the mosquitos then attacked in droves. NOt sure if the soilution worked because of the low numbers of pests or if it was effective for just a few hours and needed replenishing . .

Quote: BRM is in bulk?? Must have a website then.

 

[Arielle]

Quote: I'm sure hoping , or is that "Hopi'n" that you get a bumper crop!!

Quote: Lasted until the sun started to set and the mosquitos then attacked in droves. NOt sure if the soilution worked because of the low numbers of pests or if it was effective for just a few hours and needed replenishing . .

Quote: BRM is in bulk?? Must have a website then.

 

[Arielle]

Quote: I'm sure hoping , or is that "Hopi'n" that you get a bumper crop!!

Quote: Lasted until the sun started to set and the mosquitos then attacked in droves. NOt sure if the soilution worked because of the low numbers of pests or if it was effective for just a few hours and needed replenishing . .

Quote: BRM is in bulk?? Must have a website then.

 

[Arielle]

Quote: I'm sure hoping , or is that "Hopi'n" that you get a bumper crop!!

Quote: Lasted until the sun started to set and the mosquitos then attacked in droves. NOt sure if the soilution worked because of the low numbers of pests or if it was effective for just a few hours and needed replenishing . .

Quote: BRM is in bulk?? Must have a website then.

 

[Fluffnpuff]

I will be looking forward to your review of the pencil cob!!

I boiled three ears today. It was even better than last year. It's got the salty aftertaste but it has a hint of sweetness this year. Maybe it's because i planted it in with all my other heirloom sweet corn so cross pollination is likely.