Sweet corn update

So, as a buddy of mine warned, the squirrels would most likely get to the corn before I would. I came home on Friday and found a squirrel at it. The first two photos show the damage done.





I managed to pull three surviving corn just so I could investigate their growth. They were obviously premature, here they are pre and post peeled.









I ended up throwing these into the back yard to let the squirrels have them. I'm going to investigate what can be done to protect the corn from squirrel invasion, and if my research yields many different failed attempts, I may not attempt to grow corn again.

sweet bed

The book 'How to Grow Sweet Potato in a Northern Climate' strongly recommends using a plastic sheet as mulch to greatly increase the temperature of the soil as that is what sweet potato requires. Who am I to question the author who has the experience? Here is the new raised bed, covered. The corn I will be planting by seed in a few days, the potato I will be receiving slips in the mail in a week.

new raised bed

I built a new 5x10' raised bed for the sweet corn and sweet potato which I will be attempting to grow for the first time this spring.