Will There Be Corn or Tomatoes?

My corn is beginning to sprout tassels but I don't see any sign of ears of corn within the stalks. I'm worried that something is wrong. I just googled and found that corn needs at least one inch of water per week in order to do well. I am concerned because this corn is supposed to grow to five feet in height and is maybe half that height. I told dh last night, if the corn doesn't grow, at least the goats will like the stalks.

My tomatoes are doing great, with plenty of blossoms. But so far no tomatoes. Only blossom drop. :-( If the blossoms drop off, this means they didn't get fertilized. This can happen is the weather is too hot or too cool. Too hot is likely the problem I'm having.

My eight sunflowers are doing great, and marigolds and zinnias have germinated. The zinnias in the photo below are lighter green, with leaves that are rounder. The marigolds are darker green and the leaves have zig-zagged edges.


The watermelon is growing pretty good, and taking well to the upward training of the fence it was transplanted near. The only problem is it wants to grow through to the other side, but if it does, the birds will be able to peck at it more easily. So I have to keep feeding the growing tip back to the inside.

I put another strip of chicken wire around the corn and cucumber bed. The original chicken wire that was installed under the bed was only 4-6 inches high around the perimeter. I like to make sure the chicken wire is high enough that the gophers can crawl into the garden. I also piled up dirt all around this particular bed as I don't think it is getting enough water. That could be why the corn is still so short.

I discovered that one of my pink Swiss Chard had bolted (in a neighboring bed), so I thought I had better hurry up and harvest all the Swiss Chard. Once one bolts, the others aren't far behind. And in my experience, bolted vegetables are bitter tasting. I also harvested the last of the beets. The Swiss Chard bed looked like this before harvesting:

Here is the huge pile of Swiss Chard I harvested. Some of the leaves including the stem are nearly 18 inches in length.


I harvested the rest of the beets for the same reason - I didn't want to lose out on the delicious beet greens if they bolted. They sure do grow a lot faster at this time of year. When it's cold, they take five months to grow into small beets.


I also found that my carrots are big enough to harvest. And I harvested the Brussels sprouts off of one plant. I didn't take all the carrots, there are probably one to two dozen still in the corn bed, nestled among the corn. The carrots look good and healthy, so maybe the corn bed has been getting enough water and will eventually produce ears of corn. Still it bothers me that the corn stalks are barely 2.5-3 feet tall.

Here is the Swiss Chard bed after harvesting the Swiss Chard and beets:

Here's a side by side comparison:


There are still a few heads of leaf lettuce in the garden, I had better harvest those before they go to seed and turn bitter. I cannot stand to eat bitter lettuce.

I bought some mint on the way home from a farmer's market last Sunday. I haven't decided where to put it since mint can be so invasive it really needs a bed all of its own. I'm thinking about dragging the porcelain kitchen sinks I've seen sitting out in the yard to an area of the garden and maybe plant the mint in one side.

Until next time.