When I first started growing corn a couple of years ago, I had only four or so plants. Along the way, I read that of all veggies, corn needs to be grown in a cluster, to increase the chances of pollination. I fully intended to do that on my next attempt, except that I encountered so many issues with that first try that I decided to move on to other veggies.

Now that I have my little “club” of veggie-growing buddies, and because we tend to share excess seeds with each other (really, who’s going to plant 20 or 40 of the same plant in one or two growing seasons?), I had in my possession some really fresh-looking Red Aztec corn seeds that just begged to be planted. So I sowed the seeds and planted my corn bed – because I was going to learn from my earlier mistakes.

They have been growing, and here are our Red Aztec corn plants, just over a month old:

Here’s the Red Aztec corn family all clustered together. Methinks me went overboard crowding them like this, because some are overpowering the others. It looks like some culling will be necessary.

I admit that I transplanted the initial seedlings a little late, because they seemed to take a long time to acclimatize to the new bed. So, I decided to sow a few more seeds that I added to the bed as soon as they had sprouted. They grew fast and caught up with the other plants within two weeks. So, my lesson re-learned is that fast-growing plants have to be either direct-sown or transplanted before the tap root gets too long.

I think this is a lesson I’ll likely fail repeatedly, because I either procrastinate or don’t have time.

Anyway, the corn is busily growing, and I hope we will have a decent harvest eventually.

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