Crowded sisters

You've heard of 3 sisters, well this is crowded sisters. Corn is on my no grow list.  It takes too much space for what you get. In the past I have had a problem with tomato worms ( sorry I don't know what they are called, but you know what I mean). To top it off it's pretty cheap to buy. If I want fresh I go to the farmers market.
But .. my kids really want me to grow corn. My son cleaned and worked a huge space for corn. My hope was with that much corn the gophers couldn't get it all, I hope. Then we got a letter saying we had to repair our barn roof or loose our insurance. The spot for the corn is the access we need for the repair, so no corn.
I built a 3 1/3 X3 1/2 raised bed with hardwire cloth on the bottom.  I planted a ridiculous amount of corn, plus watermelon, and pumpkin.  Soon I will add a few beans.  It may not work. No one thinks it will. Even if it doesn't it was worth it just to see the reaction of everyone who sees it.  I don't know what will happen, but I have had amazing luck mass planting my garden beds. You look at it and think no way will anything produce. But I have experienced just the opposite.  So why not push the boundaries of corn?  Wish me luck.

if your corn grows to maturity you will learn what I did in my first year ever of growing corn. I planted the seeds much too close, like a few inches apart. the corn grew and produced ears of corn that were severely stunted. the corn cobs were just a few inches long but because the variety I planted was a quality SE variety the taste was very good but the ears would have been 10-12" long instead of the 3-4" cobs I got if I had  planted the seed 10" apart in rows that are 2.5 feet apart

When I was planting my Milpa I chose to pre-soak my corn and soaked too much. So trying to figure out what to do with the leftovers I spread a bunch on one bed and tossed some compost over it and then put the rest in this 1020 tray. If I’m gonna do something with it, I need to do it soon. But your crowded sisters made me think of my crowded babies. :-)

bruce Fine wrote: the taste was very good but the ears would have been 10-12" long instead of the 3-4" cobs I got if I had  planted the seed 10" apart in rows that are 2.5 feet apart

So at a rough guestimate, you had eight times the number of plants in a given area, which each gave you a quarter of the corn you would normally get.

Seems like you actually got twice as much in total!

Well yes, we have crowded sisters also
First time growing corn and we had a lot of rabbit poop so everybodies happy, too happy maybe?
Hoping the beans find their way out!

In experiment testing different spacing for potatoes, the total weight of sparse or tightly spaced potatoes are the same, but spud size and yield for each plant is reverse to the planting density. Same with growing carrots, space them apart to get big carrots and closely to get narrow carrots for baby cut.

Likely each of your corn will have to compete for sunlight and each cob will be smaller and maybe takes longer to mature. How about harvesting immature baby corns for stir fry?

With the bed being small, the squash may spread onto your paths such as they're doing in Judith's picture, so to some extent they'll make space for themselves.

From things I've read, corn is a fantastic "biomass" plant - the stalks and leaves are an important carbon source for composting on a small property. This is the sort of data that often gets overlooked when people are looking at "yield" as their marker for success.

A real-life example of this: Farmers at a meeting were presenting on how they were using spreadsheets to make financial decisions. One fellow was presenting on his pig barn and listed all the things we would expect such as food costs, power costs etc vs market value.  I noticed that there wasn't even a line for "manure", let alone any value put on the shit the pigs created.

When I questioned this, his response was like, "huh?" So I suggested that the manure was valuable for keeping his soil healthy for all the other "crops" he grew, so to me it should be part of the equation. If he stops doing pigs, he needs to replace that resource some other way.

The good thing was that there were several nods around the room - they might not be ready to put a line on their spreadsheet, but they were ready to look at shit as something more than a nuisance! This was several years before some world crisis suddenly jumped the cost of fertilizer and many more farmers realized the benefits of producing fertilizer on the farm.

Thanks all.  I'm ok with more smaller corn, if I get corn.  
I hadn't considered biomass. I can always use more compost.
Zucchini is providing me with lots of biomass.  The leaves are 8 to 12 inches across and long. They are huge. I prune all the leaves under the zucchini, so I'm getting several leaves a week, and that's just the first one to start to produce. This makes me realize I need another compost stall. Always to much to do. Oh well, such is life.
Thanks

Here is from the plant science textbook about crop yield vs planting density. https://www.rseco.org/content/642-yield-components.html

Going from extremely low of 1.4 wheat plant per square meter to highest of 1078 per square meter. Maximum yield is from a medium density of 35/ m2, but planting 5 times denser only reduces yield slightly. As long as you keep up with water and fertilizer, your crowded corn will produce just fine. I intentionally plant many things closely too as long as the seed cost is not a problem.

so at a rough guestimate, you had eight times the number of plants in a given area, which each gave you a quarter of the corn you would normally get.

Seems like you actually got twice as much in total!

no. the yield was very poor. but most of all those ears of corn were not salable at any of the farmers markets I attended and we ate much of the corn each ear was maybe one tenth of what it should have been because there were less rows of kernels around the cob.

corn needs its space to reach its maximum potential but I believe planting beans to climb the stalks and squash in between rows would not stunt the corn growth as the three types of plants help one another

We will call this experiment relatively a success, kinda.  Unfortunately I wasn't keeping a close eye on the corn, and it became very overripe. It was like eating rubbery wax. A very strange experience. The family would not eat it, but the chickens were thrilled.
Almost all stalks had corn. All different sizes from normal, to quite small. The pumpkins are watermelon are doing well, but very late compared to other beds planted at the same time.  I never managed to get the beans planted.
All in all it was an interesting experiment. Would I do it again? No. I may still plant corn a little closer, I won't plan this close. Do I regret doing it? No it would have been fine if I would have picked the corn sooner, and like I said the chickens were thrilled.

I had two plants per hole and two rows of six. So 24 plants. I got my best ears in three years growing this garden. Probably the no dig catching up, finally. Also had a good load of compost last fall dropped and could layer up a good dose. Same planting goes for the long beans and squash plants. I discovered that certain areas didn't have as much success than others. The area was only around 6 by 6 feet, so it was a very dense crop. I have had better ears of corn in other gardens in the past and that was with much larger beds. For those of us who have a very small footprint to grow in (mine is a fenced area that is 25 by 50 feet), I am finding that growing polycultures and high density is the only way to get a good diversity of crops. I have a strip of sweet potatoes and tomatoes growing on the side of the sisters patch. Another polyculture that I had never thought to consider. I will see how the production on the sweets turns out. Every year I debate whether to try corn again in my garden. So far, I have planted three consecutive seasons. Even though the results aren't always what I would wish for, there is still nothing like pulling an ear of corn off of the stalk and eating it raw in the garden. No matter how small it is. Just one of those gardening experiences that I want to enjoy every year.

Jen Fulkerson wrote:We will call this experiment relatively a success, kinda.  Unfortunately I wasn't keeping a close eye on the corn, and it became very overripe. It was like eating rubbery wax. A very strange experience. The family would not eat it, but the chickens were thrilled.

Overripe corn is very good toasted on the barbeque! Turn frequently and toast to a nice brown.

I think I've read that some varieties of corn can actually crop better if grown as a cluster - so you sow 5 or 6 seeds in stations at the normal spacing, rather that lots of plants at closer spacings. It might be worth a try next time if you can't bear to cull a few plants (I find that very difficult too).

May Lotito wrote:Here is from the plant science textbook about crop yield vs planting density. https://www.rseco.org/content/642-yield-components.html

Going from extremely low of 1.4 wheat plant per square meter to highest of 1078 per square meter. Maximum yield is from a medium density of 35/ m2, but planting 5 times denser only reduces yield slightly. As long as you keep up with water and fertilizer, your crowded corn will produce just fine. I intentionally plant many things closely too as long as the seed cost is not a problem.

Old post I know but needed to point out that this is completely wrong / misinterpreted. The charts yield is in grams per m2 so you so 5 times more seed per m2 and get less grain.... you get substantially more grain for sowing less seed!

Thank you Harry. I'm certainly not an expert, but I would say like most garden info it depends.  I think (again not an expert, just many years of hands on experience) what you are planting make a huge difference between higher or lower yields.  From my experience over seedlings one mass crop like you point out have lower yields.  For me I have been amazed how much I can pack into my garden bed and get amazing yields. I'm not planting all one plant in my raised beds. One bed may have several veggies, fruit, flowers and herbs. With this crowded style I can use tall plants that provide afternoon shade for plants that can't handle our brutal afternoon sun. The soil is covered, and that helps with keeping weeds down, and helps with water retention, and soil temperature.
I was surprised how much corn I got out of that bed, but I'm sure if I had spread out the same amount of corn I probably would have gotten more corn, and probably larger ears.  Also using the 3 sisters planting style I got 1 watermelon, and nothing else. I think the corn was so dense it took forever for the pumpkin and melons to climb out of the bed so it could get enough sun. ( I didn't manage to get the beans planted, but that's probably just as well). I waited to long to harvest the corn and it was almost pure starch. That was just my mistake, nothing to do with how I planted.  I'm not sorry I did this little experiment. I love growing, it was fun to watch the corn grow, and I learned a lot. Would I plant exactly this way again? No, but I may take corn off my don't bother with list.

Hi Jen,

I couldn't agree more and plenty of times going against the grain has worked really well for us. Just wanted to flag up the misinterpreting.... I'm an engineer by trade and bad science really gets me

Stick with the corn, it's really hit and miss here ( mid England ) but when you get a good year it's priceless!