Reaching High: Weekly Results

We were a-maized today to see how tall Bloody Butcher has grown. It's getting to the point where we'll start needing our parents help to measure it.  It grew 22 inches in the past week!  It is the tallest corn in the experiment so far!  

Along with taking growth measurements, we are also keeping tabs on how many stalks there are from week to week.  Keeping records of our stalk count shows that Bloody Butcher, Japanese Hulless Popcorn, and Strawberry Popcorn are showing a slow decline. 

We believe we found evidence of why:

This poor little stalk (pictured on the right) has been munched on nearly down to the ground!  We wonder if it's perhaps skunks -- you can smell they've been around the neighborhood.  Pheuuuuu!!  

 We decided to finish planting our marigolds, and finish putting red cedar mulch down.  Hopefully that will help ward off our pest, whatever it is.  The mulch will help the corn retain the water, helping it grow.
  
 Since the Heirloom Indian corn was a complete failure, we decided not to try regrowing it.  Instead, in it's place we will be planting Ruby Queen Hybrid -- it's a sweet corn that has red kernels.  It only needs 75 days until harvest.  We'll see how it does.