Ah my poor corn plants. They have been making good progress – just look at how fast the plants have grown in about two weeks!

The mini corn plantation looks rather busy, doesn’t it?

However, they have been struggling with the challenges the weather has been throwing at them. Excessive rain has encouraged the plants to start doing that famous 45-degree lean in Michael Jackson’s Smooth Criminal performances, and I have been busy constantly propping them back up.

The rain has also flattened or eroded the soil, so I’ve had to top that up as well, to cover up the exposed roots.

Red roots for red corn…

I know that this is supposed to be the most rainy part of the year for us, and boy have we had some torrential downpours over the last weeks! Instead of following the pattern of rain for a couple of days and shine for a couple of days, the weather has been sunny and hot in the mornings before dark, thundery clouds roll in in the afternoons – but those clouds don’t always deliver rain. There may be none, some, or a LOT of rain – and so the poor plants have been trying to cope.

I’m going to call these premature tassels, because the plants they’re on are small, and none of the other plants have started showing silks yet. Such a waste!

It’s no wonder then that a few of the corn plants have already started tasseling. Mind you, these are the smaller plants that are just below a metre high. The stronger plants are still growing, but don’t have any signs of tassels or silks. Sigh. This is starting to feel like corn deja vu…

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