It’s been very hot and muggy and I told Will we were primed for a bad storm. So when the weather radio called for thunderstorms Monday night we weren’t surprised. In fact, we were pretty happy to see lightning on the Western horizon that night as it was 85 degrees with extreme humidity (and being off grid we sure don’t have an air conditioner). Well, it finally rained around 11:30 p.m. and it did cool off.
But it wasn’t until yesterday that we heard how severe the storm front was to the North and South of us, with straight line winds more than 75 mph and inches of rain. Campers in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness had been pinned under big fallen pines, others injured. And many folks on the Iron Range, just south of us had trees blown down on their houses and garages or roofs torn off, etc. We feel very grateful we escaped this part of the storm and are praying for those affected. More than 15,000 people were without power as well but, of course, we never noticed.
The garden continues to astound us. I’ll be canning green beans in a couple days and have hundreds of inch-long Homemade Pickle cucumbers set on rampant vines. And this year, our dill is amazing. (I’ve even had to buy wilted, old store-bought dill on some other years — for $3.49 a bunch.)
But the star of our gardens this year is the Glass Gem popcorn. We planted it for its beauty but the plants are stupendous. They are near shoulder-high to Will and me and each plant has stooled out, having more than five lusty stalks per plant. We can’t wait to see how it turns out and how many ears we get per plant. Usually popcorn has shorter plants but Glass Gem hasn’t even thought of tasseling out at shoulder-height! Our Espresso sweet corn is tasseling out down in our main garden but not our Glass Gem. Wow!
We are still working at mulching our main garden; it takes a lot of work and hay to mulch an acre! But we work on it every day and it is looking good. My cold seems to have left me but I am still waiting awhile before I call my surgeon’s office to reschedule my gallbladder surgery. I do not want to have to postpone it again! — Jackie
gen,
That’s tough! We’ve had bad gardening years too. They say it’s what separates the men from the boys but sometimes I feel like boo hoo, why me/???? Like a few years ago when we had to plant our potatoes three times (the last time after the Fourth of July) and our corn four times, due to late cold weather and rain. Or when my garden froze to death on June 27th. Or….. Yep, we’ve all had ’em. Hang in there. It will get better! Did you try real-used cat litter down the gopher holes? It worked for me, as well as trapping the little b…tards.
Iwoots,
Some varieties of corn “stool out”, making many side shoots with roots on them. Others do not. I haven’t seen any adverse results from stooling. In fact, rooted side shoots help keep the corn from blowing down in heavy storms (usually!). Sometimes they make ears and sometimes they only make stalks and leaves. Don’t remove them as it will harm the plant. We like them as after we harvest the ears, we cut the stalks to feed the animals and the more leaves and tender shoots there are, the more feed!
TXCOMT,
Luckily, our hot, humid days are few and far between! For instance, now our night time temps are around 50 degrees, plenty good for sleeping and the days usually average about 70 so that’s not hard to tolerate at all. But boy when it gets how and humid we seriously think about hauling a bed down to our basement where the temp stays about 55-60 at the hottest.
Patsy,
We let our dry corns dry on the stalk until it is hard and dry. Then we husk it and bring it inside to dry a bit more on our enclosed porch. After that, we shell it by hand and put on screens to air dry for a few weeks. Then it goes into glass jars to store. After a couple of days we always check to make sure there’s no humidity shown on the inside of the jar in the form of condensation dropplets. If there is any at all, it’s back on the screens to dry out some more. Handled this way, there’s no chance of molding.
We finally got enough cucumbers to make 9 pints of candied dill pickles. I hope we get at least 3 times that much more. Zelda, the beets didn’t make it, no pickles from them again this year. Has anyone ever heard of a gopher taking down whole stalks of okra, eating fruit, stalk and all? I tell ya, four bad years of gardening is almost too much to bear. This year we have/had a bumper crop of pears on the trees, but mom and dad are sitting outside from breakfast to supper, because the birds and the squirrels have decided they want the pears more than we do.
Hope everyone is doing well, and the pictures of your garden are fantastic, Miss Jackie.
When corn grows multiple stalks like that I always called it “octo-corn”. I never knew there was a name for that.
What do you mean “See how the plants have stooled out? Now if each stalk produces an ear…”? I tried to find an answer online, but the sites addressed why corn appears undigested in stool. Do I want these extra stalks on my normal sweet corn; or are they just using up nutrients meant for the main stalk? Thank you in advance for any help.
Glad to hear you and yours are OK, JC! And, BTW, my hat’s off to you for enduring humidity with no A/C…I live down here in North Texas and there’s no way I’d do so with air-conditioned buildings and vehicles, at least in the summer!
TXCOMT
How do you store your popcorn? Do you let it dry out well and then put it in glass jars? Ours has gotten some mold on it in the past and we thought it was completely dry. Thanks.
Wow!!!! Your Glass Gem is totally awesome georgeous. It usually is a very short corn. What a great addition ears of that corn and the seed would make to the things you sell. I didn’t plant any this year, it was too cold and wet and windy well into our alleged planting season, the soil didn’t warm up until June, and it seemed like the seed would probably either rot in the ground or not germinate well. Congratulations on another gardening success! You and Will sure are the GoTo people for garden advice.
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