Biggkidd's homestead planting notes.

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Biggkidd

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5/25/21 Planted Jimmy red corn and giant sunflowers. Jimmy Red corn is also a old time favorite of bootleggers.

A lot of people are not familiar with Jimmy red corn so I copied this from Hoss Tools

Jimmy Red Corn was originally cultivated by the Native Americans, but has since become a staple red field corn in Georgia, Florida and the Carolinas. It was made popular by chefs in South Carolina, where it is a favorite ingredient for corn meal, grits and delicious cornbread. It is similar to the traditional Bloody Butcher red corn, but with an improved flavor. Like most field corn varieties, Jimmy Red is yellow while in the milking stage. But it matures to a deep red color that adds beautiful red flakes to the ground product. Once ground, Jimmy Red Corn has a rich, sweet taste that is the gold standard for red corn. In addition to grinding, Jimmy Red is a great corn for roasting fresh. Plants have great vigor in a wide variety of growing conditions and produce two ears per stalk that are 10-12″ in length.

Jimmy Red should be planted in the spring after the last frost date. Corn can be grown throughout the warmer months up until fall, as long as time is permitted for harvest before first frost. Succession planting is recommended with at least two plantings, one in early spring and one in late summer/early fall. Corn ear worm pressure will be greater in the warmer months, but this can be alleviated by applying spinosad to silks and tassels once they appear.

We recommend planting Jimmy Red using a walk-behind planter like our Hoss Garden Seeder. Once plants emerge, thin plants to 8-12″ depending on adequate irrigation. If drip irrigation is used, in-row spacing may be as close as 8″. If water is scarce, a wider in-row spacing will be necessary. For pollination purposes, corn should be planted in a square plot with rows on 30-36″ spacing. Planting a few long rows will result in poor germination and absence of kernels on the cobs. 85-110 days

Jimmy Red Corn Planting Information
Planting Method: direct seed

When to Plant: after last frost
 
Thanks for the post! As a kid spending my adolescent years growing up on a farm, for some reason I always got a kick out of planting them and watching them grow. I don’t call the variety we grew, but they certainly tasted good. We planted all the fields by hand, but I still enjoyed it. I know corn can be grown in Alaska, but I’ve not tried it.
 
5/26/21 Planted Bloody Butcher and soybeans in alternating rows. Debating adding buckwheat to the mix as I cool off to go finish the corn, beans are done in this section.
 
6/2/21
Planted about a 1/8th acre patch of buckwheat and another 1/3 to 1/2 acre of bloody butcher corn. I'll have to go back and put beans between the rows after the rain passes and it dries out some.
 
I would advise against planting buckwheat in with the corn and beans, unless it would be easy to cut out. I planted a patch of nothing but buckwheat one year. When it bloomed I had something going on and couldn't cut it right then. It went to seed and it took me 3 years to get rid of it. It's a great plant for green manure, but it is ready to cut down and till in in 6-8 weeks around here.
 
It's not mixed in with them. I plan to harvest it anyway. I need more seed and critter feed! Since I have no choice but harvest by hand I'll likely either till the green back in or cut it close and feed it to the animals. My ground says I NEED to till it back in. lol This is the first thing ever planted in this spot. Hoping the root structure will help break up the clay some. I had a devil of a time plowing, disking and tilling and still wasn't able to get the dirt as fine in structure as needed for seed beds. Ground NEEDS organic matter some kind of bad!
 
Buckwheat will work well for that. Not sure of your growing zone, but around here, zone 7a, I can grow and turn a crop every 6 to 8 weeks probably 4 to 5 cycles per year. Even if you could only do 2 or 3 cycles, it makes a good deal of mass to add to the soil
 
Southern Va about 40 miles from the NC state line so probably the same zone. That sounds about right fella south of me 100 - 150 miles says he gets 5 to 6.
 
Your not that far from me, so yeah could be same zone. Probably would have more to do with elevation.
Even this late in the year, I'd bet you could turn 3 cycles before cold weather. Maybe 4
 
Thanks for the tip!!!!! I have been working hard for a long time trying to improve the ground here and it is starting to pay off I think. I must admit growing things to improve soil was a totally new and foreign concept to me just a few short years ago. But since I started learning about sustainable stewardship natural is the way I am trying to go. Natural being things like wood ash, chicken litter, green manure, cover crops, manure, composted tree chips etc.. I haven't used any chemical fertilizer in near 5 year or so. Probably longer than that. I just don't personally believe chemicals are sustainable esp. in a grid down or SHTF situation.
Sure wish I could find someone who would setup bee keeping here. I've got all I can handle on my plate. We finally started getting some wild honey bees about two years ago. Guess it took them awhile to find us! lol
 
5/26/21 Planted Bloody Butcher and soybeans in alternating rows. Debating adding buckwheat to the mix as I cool off to go finish the corn, beans are done in this section.
6/3/21
Jimmy red corn has started sprouting.
6/4/21
Bloody butcher and soybeans started sprouting
 
Sounds like your well on your way Kiddo. I try and do the same as much as I can as well. I use a little fertilize for certain things. But do try and limit it as much as possible. My place is mostly red clay, the field area is a little more a clay/ loam mix. But the buckwheat sure helps. Leaves, annual ryegrass thru the winter, it all helps.
 
Yep lots of bright reds and oranges which I am slowly seeing turn tan then brown and some of the older areas are getting somewhat dark brown. Daikon radishes have been a big help getting water to drain.
 
Spent a few hours weeding my one raised bed this afternoon. It only has 2 tomato plants 2 pepper plants and 2 types of garlic in it now. The weeds were so bad I couldn't hardly tell the garlic was growing! I am not a fan of weeding. I need to go get several more loads of composted tree chips. That's all I have in this bed for growing medium, well a little chicken litter and wood ash for a little extra bump but that's not really the growing medium. But when you go get free compost it's FULL of weed seeds!
 
Hey @Biggkidd, even when you buy growing medium there is a high chance of weeds, I left a bag of potting soil on a table covered over the winter and when I cut it open weeds.... I don't know if there is a way to keep the weeds out, I just pull them as I water each morning, trouble is some plants look like baby weeds.....
 
Hey @Biggkidd, even when you buy growing medium there is a high chance of weeds, I left a bag of potting soil on a table covered over the winter and when I cut it open weeds.... I don't know if there is a way to keep the weeds out, I just pull them as I water each morning, trouble is some plants look like baby weeds.....
I'll stick to the free stuff. I get it by the deuce load 1/2 way from my place to the hardtop road. A local tree service dump lot. I have permission to take anything that hits the lot otherwise it goes up in smoke at some point.
 
I hate to even think what that cost now. I priced some a month ago and decided to grow my own seed from what I had left here. They wanted 94.97 or 97.94 I forget which for 50 lbs.
 
Nasty day here today dull grey and rainy. Anyway while out doing evening chores I rode around some of my poor pitiful excuse for crops this year. The Jimmy Red corn I planted which came in very sparse and patchy has now gone in the other direction. Many of the stalks have 4 & 5 ears on them and I saw one with 7! I've never seen more than 4 that I can remember. Now this corn along with a few other areas got a mix of some weird fertilizers that I threw a piece of this and that together. I typically don't use chemical fertilizer anymore but this was all stuff people had given me. These are also not human eating crops but animal feed crops or crops to help grow the soil. I'm just wondering if anyone else has ever seen 4+ ears of corn on a single stalk?
 
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