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kawaiineko_gardener

growing corn

Yes, this is about growing vegetables. However this is about growing early corn for short seasons in the south, so please don't tell me to post this in the vegetable gardening forum.

In seed catalogs, I've seen varieties of corn that are early maturing corn that are bred to germinate in cool soil; these varieties are also designed for short season areas with mild climates.

I'm wondering if you can grow these varieties successfully in southern areas of the U.S. (FL, AL, etc.) that typically have a long growing season. Or, would they just not do well in that environment, or does it not make any difference?

I'd like to use these varieties so that I can get more of a harvest from them, that's why I'm asking.

Regarding the corn, it's recommended that you plant early, mid, and late season varieties at the same time, so you extend the harvest.

Also I know this off topic, but if you can do this with corn, I'm wondering if you can use this strategy with other vegetables too?

NOTE: The vegetables with asterisks next to them mean I would only be planting early and late season varieties, not early, mid, and late season varieties.

If so, the other vegetables I'd like to use with this are okra*, green beans, soybeans*, green beans,

broccoli, lettuce, cauliflower*, Chinese/oriental cabbage*

In southern areas of the United States it would be.....Florida, Alabama, S. Carolina, Mississippi, or Louisiana.

If it were to be FL, it would either be the southern part of it with a gardening zone of 9-10 (Fort Myers, St. Petersburg, Napes, Bonita, Springs, Miami, etc.) or the northern area of the state by the panhandle (Pensacola, Panama City, Tallahasee, etc.)

Comments (3)

  • louisianagal
    12 years ago

    Interesting. I've never heard of this, but then again, I've never grown corn. This site gets very little traffic so I don't know if you'll get a timely response. I can recommend msucares.com website and you would probably do best to call the Extension Service of either Mississippi State or LSU. I'm sure you can find them on Google. Those guys are the experts. Good luck.
    Laurie from Louisiana but now in Mississippi.

  • Donna
    12 years ago

    Kawaiineko, I know you from the Vegetable Gardening Forum...

    I am not sure I fully understand your question, but I will say this about green beans. (I only plant pole beans due to our tastes.) I plant a crop as early as I can in the spring, and MOST years (not this past year), I will get several good pickings from it before our summer weather gets so hot that the blooms stop setting fruit. Typically, that happens by mid July at the latest.

    Then I wait out the really hot weather (planting cowpeas or squash in the space in the meantime.) and plant another crop of green beans in mid August. By the time the plants are big enough to bloom, our fall weather has come in, cooling down the temperatures and I get several more pickings before first frost.

    THIS year, we had an exceptionally hot and dry June, so I got ONE good picking from my first crop....then our fall was exceptionally early and cool, so my fall crop was cut short too, though it was better than the first.
    Basically, when our daytime temps start regularly hitting over 90 degrees, beans and tomatoes stop setting fruit.

    I have not grown corn since my garden is too small. However, most people who garden here do grow it. They all seem to have it in and finished up by late June....Don't know if that's because that's all the weather will sustain, or if they just plant one big crop and quit when it gets really hot. That's not much info. Maybe someone else will chime in.

    Oh, Kentucky Wonder Pole Beans slow down, but do not entirely stop setting beans in our hottest weather....This next summer, I intend to try asparagus beans during mid summer, since they are touted to keep producing in the extreme heat.

    The truth is, you don't know till you try....

    In our part of the country, once the soil warms, nothing stops okra from producing until frost. (Our nights are hot and humid here too. Like Hawaii, right?)

    I have no experience with soybeans. Broccoli, lettuce, cauliflower, and Chinese cabbages are all fall/winter crops only, here. (Ditto, onions and garlic.) I can keep them producing right through our winters under floating row covers. Our lows occasionally reach down into single digits, but mostly stay in the upper teens to upper twenties in January and February, our coldest months. Of course, broccoli doesn't produce much once the main head has been harvested. Still, it's so easy and so delicious...
    If your winters are as mild as I think they are, you could probably get more than one crop of these... Maybe even beans too?? (I think Floridians do.)

  • talldaddy
    12 years ago

    I try to plant G90 sweet corn as early as possible. I get good success but it does not pop through the ground until it gets warm enough. I would think that would hold true for any variety of corn or garden vegetable. I would not think short season crops would be a problem in the south. The problem I could see is with using long growing season crops too far north. This is just my two cents worth...nothing else.

    Jeff H