First Time Corn/Potatoe grower

I'm in Zone 5 and want to try corn and potatoes for 07. I have heard Kandy Korn is easy in my zone. What have you zone 5'ers succesfully grown for corn and potatoes? I don't have a lot of room for the potatoes so they will be grown in a new EB, but my crop rotation leaves a lot of room for corn in the big bed in 07. I'm new with potatoes and corn and a little nervous too, so I'd be happy to hear about your successes and recomendations. Especially FarmerDill please.

I'd be interested in hearing more about this also. We've not grown corn (too much space for our little garden) but have had very nice luck with Red Norland and Superior potatoes here in Zone 5a.

If you like yellow corn, Kandy Korn is about as good as any. Relatively easy to grow. Just remember to plant it in blocks not in a single row. It is a heavy feeder and needs space to produce good ears. I would plant it groups 12 -18 inches between stalks, depending on the fertility of the soil. If you like white corn, Silver King. There are quite a few bi-colors that are good. If you are limited for space, The early cultivars with small stalks and ears may be in order. I like Sunglow for Yellow and Silver Princess for white. Quickie for bi-color. In your area, you should be able to grow any type of Irish potato. Just plant the type you like to eat. Mine are Pontiacs and Irish Cobblers, but in a hot climate I can only grow fast maturing cultivars, You are not limited.

Farmerdill I grew a small plot of Quickie and wasn't real happy with it. Not as sweet as i thought it would be and kind of starchy. I tried 3 other kinds and that is the only one that got some corn smut.

One other I tried was Pearls'n gold. I was very pleased with that. Was sweet and the silk came off really nice.It's also a bi-color.
Another was Kandy King Which was okay. Nice ears and good flavor. A yellow corn

I also had to try Baby Corn for fun. Got enough to add to a few chinese dishes. Cleaned real easy and was fun.

I've also grown Red Norland and they have done very good. I prefer a red potatoe.

In the past I've grown Early Extra Sweet and it's a very nice yellow corn.

Farmerdill, what happens to your potatoes in a hot climate if you grow the long maturing cultivars?

Do you grow a green manure/cover crop before planting potatoes? Our grandparents taught us to never plant potatoes without first preparing the ground with a cover crop.
This year I didn't do the cover crop and I lost 1/3 of the plants to verticillium wilt. We grow heirloom yellow potatoes, like German Butterball or Dutch Bintje.

Very true, Ves. None of the small extra early corn can compare to mid season or full season corn. Quickie is one of the earliest of the bi-colors, maturing almost a month ahead of Pearls n Gold. If you want a good in between, the mid season Sugar Dots is very good. If you have space and patience to wait, the 80 -90 day corns are almost always better. But they are usually large space hogging plants.

Red Norland is a good potato, but Pontiac is more dependable here.

Irish potatoes seem to hurry up do whatever they are going to do as the temps climb in to the upper 90's. Here they rarely survive June. With early to midseason varieties i have new potatoes im May, the main reason I plant them anyway. Early June they come out of the ground to make room for something else.

Except where I am growing winter vegetables, like brassicas , English peas, carrots. The field is sown in rye, which is plowed down in early February. Back when I was a farmer, Irish potatoes were rotated with hay fields.

Thanks Farmerdill. Do you harvest your new potatoes when the plants are blooming or wait for some other sign or measured number of days?

They rarely bloom, when the plants fall over, I scratch around the the plant for new potatoes without killing the plant.The old folks called this grabaeling. As soon as the vine yellows, I will dig for new potatoes. Those I wish to store I wait until the vine is completely dead.

Sort of like the old Ernst and Julio Gallo commercial: We move no vine, before its time.

very funny BD - I have a question too. I have never grown corn. I would like to give a try as well. How many stalks would you plant to feed one person?? I'm not sure what the yields are. I hope that doesn't sound like too much of a dumb question.

That seems like a good question to me, Anita, and I'd like to know the answer as well. Some of us who are very careful to parcel out space in our smallish gardens have to forego many fun items that take too much room (compared to their yield). I've always assumed corn was one of these things, but maybe not. Anybody have a good "yield for space" answer for us?

How much do you eat. All you can can count on is one ear per stalk. Two ears are a bonus ofetn often set by the failure of a stalk to bear. The small cultivars, you can probably get a dozen stalks in a six ft square as long they are not crowded by other plants.

There's a corn seed in Schumway's Seed Catalog called 6-shooter. I don't remember much else about it other than you are suppose to get 6 ears per plant.

Ambrosia is a delicious 75 day bi-color. Incredible is a good 82 day yellow.
I used to raise Kandy Korn 20 some years ago. It was pretty good, but blew down flat oftentimes.

Oh m' gosh, Indy! Kandy Korn was introduced in '87, when I first started growing it. Has it been nearly 20 yrs already!? I declare! (But I love it to this very day!) (As for lodging I hill it up a tad once the stalks have taken hold good and don't worry about it anymore.)

Hey, F-dill...how does Sunglow compare to Golden Bantam? (Flavor, maturity date, height of stalk.)

lakf, in your post above you said you were gonna grow taters in an EB...I can only assume you mean Earth Box. You'll never be able to grow taters in an EarthBox, it's just not designed for that.

As for the "six shooter' corn, I think that Shumway's blurb might be a bit too much hype...I can't imagine any corn producing 6 ears per stalk. (And I buy certain seeds/etc from Shumways so don't think I am putting them down; I just don't think it could happen unless it is those little miniature corns you grow for Oriental stir-fries or the like.)

edited to add I just HAD to do a quick Google search for "six shooter". I'm still not convinced but it has gotten my attentions. Has anyone tried it yet? Can it be true?

Shoe

This message was edited Aug 14, 2006 9:52 PM

Shoe,
Kandy Korn has been out since the 1970s according to Gurneys. It was about the first of the EH series.

You're correct, Indy....(checked my notes)...it came out in '77, not '87. (Oh boy howdy, now I REALLY feel old!)

But still, I love it! (The korn, that is, not feeling old(er)!)

Guess the "EH" really does mean Everlasting!

Shoe.

Sunglow vs Golden Bantam -

Sunglow - Maturity - 65 days Golden Bantam - 80 days
Ears - 6-7 inch 12 row 5-6 inch 8-row
Plant size - 5-6 ft 4-5 ft
Type - Su hybrid open pollinated
Breeder - Charter 1960 Burpee 1923
Bottom line- Sunglo is good for an early corn, Does not taste any better than Golden Bantam, but is ready quite a bit sooner. Holds in the field and after harvest better than Bantum, but still fades much faster than the newer hybrids. A lot of new hybrids have been introduced in the 60-70 day range but I obviously have not tried them all. There may be some better ones out there.

Six Shooter has been around for years as a novelty corn.

Oh don't mind me, I'm so new I have no clue what I'm talking about. I meant EB as in Edging Bed which DH made for me. I guess I don't know what it's really called, but it is a raised bed with wood all around it and nicely amended soil.

Lafk, feeling stupid again :(

Maybe next year I'll pick up all this lingo a little better ha ha ha.

Megan

Great info - now I have another question. There are different opinions as to variety/cultivars. Would it be a good idea to vary the rows? In other words, do one row Kandy Korn, one Bantam and one Sunglow [as an example]. I'm thinking since they vary in maturation dates. Or should I stick to one cultivar, start some indoors early and then the rest outside so I have a staggered crop?

By the way - I can't thank everyone enough for all their input. I've been on DG for a year now and it always amazes me at how wonderful everyone is!

I always do that way. Currently two rows of Silver Princess, two rows of Silver King and two rows of Silver Queen fro the main crop corn. Next year I am going to try to extend even further with Silver Knight. I also plant at least two experimental cultivars in a seperate planting. That way I get an extended harvest without the difficulty of succession planting. I am getting a little long in the tooth and lazy. I hate taking the cultivars off the tractor and putting the planter on. The more I can plant at one time with staggered maturity dates the better. One note, If you plant a yellow corn and a white corn side by side with similar maturity dates, you get a bicolor. Use to do this with Silver Queen and Golden Queen. The result was almost identical to Bi-Queen. All of these are very good late corn by the way.

Thanks for the Sunglow/G.Bantam info, Dill. (Wow...I was thinking G.Bantam was a much earlier corn; think I'll skip it now.)

Megan/lafk...no need to apologize! Your "EB" now makes sense to me. From other threads around here they tend to use that term for "Earth Box" and that's what flowed into my head. What you've described though is a "raised bed" or a "boxed bed" and yes, you can certainly do taters in that. Just plant your tater eyes 8-12 inches apart in well-fed soil and you'll do fine!

F-dill...can you pull off the top of your head and let Anita know which varieties/cultivars not to plant together? Remember, sh2's/supersweets/standard corn etc...some shouldn't cross or you'll end up with starchy field corn or the like, eh? (I have my notes somewhere here but I'm sure you can rattle it off the top of your head!)

Thanks.
Shoe.

Yep, isolate Sh2's from all other types including OP's. Su's, Se's, and even the new synergystic's. I don't really care for the Sh 2's (supersweets). Tried one of the synergystic's (Avalon) this year. It was decent but I don't like it near as well as Silver King in its time slot. By the way it does not hurt the other types of corn, but the Sh2's wind up tasting like a mixture of rubber and corn starch with a little sugar on it.

I thought that's what the SH2's tasted like anyway...LOL

I'm in zone 5. It's been very hot (90s and 100s) and dry until recently. The last couple of weeks we've gotten a good amount of rain and it's cooled off down to the 80s and even 70s sometimes during the day.

Haven't tried corn, but I planted about a dozen sets of All Blue Potatoes in June. I haven't harvested them yet, but the plants are very big and healthy. It's obvious that some bug has been eating the leaves, but not bad enough to damage the plants' health. The worst problem I've had is losing a couple stems on a plant that I hilled with compost instead of yard dirt. I wonder if the compost was too rich or too acidic for the plant.

I've also had trouble with some critter excavating. I don't know if it's managed to steal potatoes yet or not.