Ah, Sweet (Corn) Mystery of Life

We planted a block of Silver Queen corn (3 wide double-rows = 6 rows, with about 56-58 surviving plants) on April 15th ("pay your taxes, plant your corn"). About six weeks later, I interplanted (down the center of the wide rows) with pink-eye purplehull peas...for the weed protection, for the crop of peas, and for the nitrogen "fix" they will provide. And all was growing well until...

Corn patch, flattened
after high winds

This week. Monday. High winds (clocked at about 40 mph at the airport) and driving rain. After it all blew over, I ventured out into the Way Back to find our corn flattened. Broke my heart when I saw it.

I immediately started researching what to do. I grabbed several of my gardening books; only one had anything about storm-damaged corn...and that was mainly about how to protect the corn before the storm comes (shoulda, woulda, coulda). I then began a web search and got many suggestions (stake it, pull it up and replant, do nothing, etc.) all over the map.

I posted the photo to Facebook, seeking sympathy as well as advice, and received several responses. One of those was from a friend whose father was both a rural letter carrier with Daddy out of the Henning Post Office and a farmer. He suggested I try to right the stalks before the heat baked the ground to bricks again.

While it made sense, it proved more difficult than I anticipated. I had to abandon my first and only attempt to raise the stalks when I slipped in the mud...and realized no one was around to hear me if I wound up on my back, calling "I've fallen and I can't get up!" It would just have to wait.

And "wait" is exactly what I did. I left the corn alone. I did nothing. And, amazingly, the stalks righted themselves!

Corn standing again...on its own...
three days later

I am still having a hard time believing what I am seeing. Hence the pictures...

Of course, I have no idea whether these stressed stalks will make a crop...or even if these stalks with survive the storms that are predicted for today: winds in excess of 60 mph...plus hail! That's almost hurricane-strength, folks. And hail took out my corn crop 3 years ago, although I had time to replant a late season crop then. Not this year...we are two weeks past the last day to plant corn in the Piedmont, so that's not an option.

We will just have to wait-and-see how things turn out after today's storms blow through. I'll keep you updated.