Thom Bri

May Lotito wrote: ...everything would finish up except a few giant Inca maize. I gave the ears a sneak peek, there seemed to be little cross pollination.

Very pretty!

My Inca corn, Baker Creek Maiz Morado, is also quite a bit slower than any of my other corns. I suspect not a lot of cross-pollination either. Some of them are still trying to pollinate now, while my purple corn started pollinating in early July. Both planted on the same day. Stalks are tall and very sturdy with lots of brace roots. The ears are very high on the stalk, some above 6 feet. I have picked two early. They are fairly small, 5 inches or so, dark purple-black, and 8 rows. None of the plants are producing large ears, so I think this will be a low productive variety.

Leaving for a short vacation in a few days, so I went ahead and bundled up my corn and hung it to dry in the basement. I have a dehumidifier down there so it is very dry, and I turned a fan on as well. Dry and moving air to prevent mold. Weather is predicted to be humid and rainy the coming week, so leaving the corn on the garage floor wasn't the best option.

Bundles are with string tied around the husks and hanging point-down, typically about 5 ears per bundle. 41 bundles so far, so roughly 200+ ears of corn.

Eric Hanson wrote:Susan,

And again, I personally think going with the weakest pain reliever that works is useful for preventing any addiction.  


Eric

Not only addiction, but also chronic pain. Plenty of evidence that opiates CAUSE chronic pain.
Get off them ASAP.

May Lotito wrote:My

Thom Bri wrote:Double-tip ears.

This is a rare case of fasciation .  

Seeing more of it than usual this year. Most years get a few.

More on Glass Gem. I got two obvious crosses with my corn. I have a lot of ears that I think are crosses, but on these two I know they are, because I picked them from my glass gem row, and the plants looked like typical Glass Gem plants and not like my purple corn plants. Quite distinct.

These ears are not quite twice as long as the Glass Gem ears, and considerably thicker. I think it will make a good addition to the pool of genetics.

Pic shows several typical Glass Gem ears. One ear, on the left, that I suspect is partly Glass Gem, and the two ears on the right that I know are crosses:

Double-tip ears. This year I got a lot of these. I think it is because the double tip ears are generally thicker so I may have selected for this trait by accident. It's not always obvious that an ear is double, as the one dark purple ear shows. If you didn't look carefully you might not notice.

This is a trait I don't like, because it thickens the tip so the husks do not fully cover the tip, allowing birds and insects a highway into the ear.

What we are eating, purple sweet corn. This is repeated crossings of standard commercial sweet corn with my purple corn. It has been several years since I added any pure sweet corn seed to the mix. Last year I had a lot of purple ears that had sweet corn seeds scattered among them. I saved some of those seeds and mixed them in with my sweet corn seeds. The result was pretty good. Most of the purple ears were soft and sweet, but a few were not so sweet. I have saved a lot of seed for 2027 already.

According to my wife, we have eaten about 500 ears of corn this summer, plus I gave a way maybe a hundred more. Sadly, I only have one more pick left in the garden, then no more corn until next summer.

Lots of wonderful advice above. My two cents:

Do the PT! Even when it hurts.

Opiates for a few days only, 2-3. Then stick to Tylenol or Ibuprofen (or both at the same time). Lowers risk for long-term-chronic pain.

After surgery they will probably order stronger pain meds the first night in the hospital. My experience (as a nurse) is that a single dose of IV Tylenol works better than the opiates in the immediate post surgical period. Ask your doc if that's a possibility. As someone above said, docs are usually happy to order something other than opiates if the patient requests.

I'd have to say racoons, though deer are also very easy around here.

Mary Cook wrote:No, pollination is still ongoing; I planted late because of spring drought.

That is a problem.
Have the stalks started to stand themselves back up? If they are just laid down flat but the roots are intact it should stand back up, but if the root balls are torn out it may not.

Is your patch small enough that you can help pollination by shaking tassels over the silks?