Thursday, March 26, 2020

Corn-eeeee

I can only dream.
I’ve never been able to grow corn.
The planets are aligned against it.
Why am I thinking of this at the end of March?
Because it’s still winter here.
But we're hoping spring (and growing season) are sometime in our near future.
Moving on . . .
For over forty years, I’ve kept a garden.
Oh, it has changed in that time.
Mostly gotten smaller.
For many, many of those years, I attempted to grow corn.
Corn-on-the-cob just says summer to me.
Most of the time, my tidy little corn plants merely peeked above ground.
Sighed.
And died.
Twice, they grew to maturity.
Developed ears, even.
And then . . .
Well, let me tell you about it.
I had a large garden behind our mobile home just outside of Orton, Alberta. (Near Fort MacLeod)
It was growing beautifully.
The weather had cooperated.
The rains had come when they were needed.
Plenty of sun.
For the first time, ever, I had mature corn plants.
Nearly ready to harvest mature corn plants.
Then, one sunny, but slightly breezy day, the county sprayer drove by.
Spraying the ditches.
For weeds.
Now, if there is any wind, the county sprayers are supposed to be cautious. Not spray near homesteads. Avoid people.
This sprayer . . . wasn’t.
And did.
And the next day, I walked out into my garden and noticed that everything looked . . . wilted.
My first thought was frost.
Okay, it was July, the only month of the year when frost is . . . uncommon.
Then I remembered the sprayer.
Long story short – the weed-killer had lived up to its name.
My garden – and my beautiful corn – was dead.
Sigh.
A couple of years later, in a different small house and with a different garden patch, I again saw my efforts to grow corn rewarded.
Saw ears develop.
And then . . . grasshoppers.
In 1983, in Southern Alberta, we had a ‘plague of locusts’. A real plague – look it up. They were so numerous that cars were known to slip in the tide that constantly flowed across the roads. They devoured crops and hay.
And my corn. Drilled holes right through those babies.
Another sigh.
Oh, I didn’t give up.
I tried.
And tried.
And tried.
But never again did my corn amount to anything more than tall, attractive (earless) plants.
I still eat corn.
And corn-on-the-cob still shouts summer to me.
But, alas, someone else has to do the growing.
I will stick with the appreciating.
And devouring.
The two things I’m obviously best at.

8 comments:

  1. Sigh.
    The weed sprayers hit blackberries (just days away from ripe blackberries) more years than I care to remember.
    And the grasshoppers and birds are skilled at knowing what is ripe and delicious before I do.
    I am also too often an appreciator and a devourer too.

    ReplyDelete
  2. That makes two of us, only I haven't given up yet.
    But you sure have bad bad luck!
    I moved into this house with garden 25 years ago. And I've been growing corn every single year ever since with TWO nice and edible ears as a result. I am going to try again. As a small defence, we are at the northern limit for corn - it almost goes through my garden. But still! Hoping for global warming to help me this year.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ha! I sympathize. I wish my thumb was green. I still give it a shot as I love gardening.

    ReplyDelete
  4. This black thumb salutes your ability to grow anything at all!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Ooo, how aggravating it must have been to lose your corn to the weedsprayer . . . I am an appreciator and devourer also. Last year I did manage to grow peas on my back deck that is too high for the deer to reach! I'm just waiting for them to learn to climb the stairs this year :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Some day, the corn will come in.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I tried to grow corn a few times without success then learned that the plants need to be close together so they can fertilise each other and if it isn't windy enough for the pollen to carry I should go outside and shake the pollens over to each neighbouring plant. Which I did and was rewarded with one edible ear of corn. ONE. Now I buy frozen corn kernels instead.

    ReplyDelete
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