On Mon, 01 Nov 2010 12:47:18 -0400, Notat Home wrote:

George wrote:
An amazing and audacious experiement, growing sweet corn in lawn.

My neighbour, who has the run off where I plant a crop of sweet corn
every season, has finally decided at 93 that it is time he moved in to a
rest home. The house is going on the market. No growing in his garden
this year.

My existing raised gardens are fully at present.

So, I have grown sweet corn seedlings and planted them into the lawn.

First I scalped the grass with the lawn mower. I dug a slit into the
soil, like planters do when planting pine trees, and placed the SC
seedlings into the slit and then closed it back up.

The soil is loamy and because it was undisturbed lawn, has good
structure. The soil should be fertile and have enough nutrients in it.

It may need to be irrigated more regularly than in a garden but I can
take care of that.

Anyone have any comments or advice?

Rob
I've never tried that, but I know that farmers put a lot of effort (and
chemicals) into keeping grass out of their corn fields. I don't know if
it is because the grass would interfere with their harvesters, or would
compete for nutrients in the soil. I think corn is a crop that requires
a lot of nutrients; I fertilize mine heavily. Now I just need something
to dissuade the racoons from eating my corn before it is ripe.

I know that corn has very deep roots so needs to be planted in deeply
tilled soil... I suspect planting corn in a compacted lawn wouldn't
yield much of a crop.

http://www.extension.org/pages/Corn_Roots

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0709091232.htm