Corn is not a good crop for here.
I have had it work out okay once or twice.
It just demands too much nutrients and water for fitting into my gardening scheme. It seldom develops more than 18" tall, and so thin they look like grass weeds! Not worth the effort for me.
Actually, root crops, other than potatoes or sweet potatoes don't do well here. Beets and their cousin swiss chard, just don't fare well at all. So, this year, I am putting the difficult root crops, which is anything but potatoes, into containers! And Swiss chard counts as a beet, when it comes to difficulty in growing. Egyptian onions, chives, and garlic seem to grow fine, but regular onions just won't bulb at all.
I just don't get it, tobacco is huge, it goes 6-7' tall, with huge leaves, and it grows like crazy here! What on earth could be the reason, other than this is wonderful soil for nightshade? Poke grows like crazy, but spinach doesn't even try! I am trying malabar spinach this year.
On the growing side, they are all iffy... if only there was a nightshade plant for sweetening! But for processing the syrup, looks like beets win hands down. I just can't get past how to get the sap out of the canes! I keep looking at my old wringer washer, and wondering if it could be modified and cleaned and use the wringers to squeeze the canes? But, it isn't food grade, ya know?
Iffy or not, you don't learn something, by sitting on your hands... so I will be trying both sugar beets and sorghum.
I am also looking into growing Stevia, but it is my understanding, that some Stevia is bitter and some is not, so you have to try alot of different plants and then clone the good ones!
I know that Arkansas is a major agricultural state, but that is in the lowlands. That is not here in the Ozarks, sure some edges are on the border of farmland. I am within sight of the highest point in Arkansas, far from farmland. There has never been grain elevators or silos here, no cotton, no wheat, rice, or soybeans grown in this area. We do have small fields here and there of milo on farms that raise dairy cows. But mostly our area is wilderness, with parks, and hunting areas. This is a hunting, fishing, tourism area. I live on a lake access road, with many neighbors who earn their living in guiding fishermen, or maintaining the houses that folks timeshare. This is vacation wonderland, not farmland! ha ha It is beautiful here, and I do hunt and fish, but it just isn't farmland.
That said, folks grow food on balconies, in containers, and make deserts productive. I am determined!
This is mountainous terrain, rocky, and lots of trees and tree roots. The soil profile is shallow and you reach sterile subsoil very quickly... not the deep rich farmland that I saw when I grew up in farmland. You don't plow here, you bull doze! You will wreck a tiller in minutes here. Just digging a septic line will dig up huge slabs of limestone. Our electric is still on poles, they would have to use dynamite to bury it. I am trying to remember what they call it when I have my soil tested... chertle? It means rocky subsoil, with bits of topsoil here and there. I can grow trees very, very well! ha ha And I have already planted muscadines this year!
Last year soil test showed fine, only with alot of potassium. This year, we are finding 6-8 worms per shovel of dirt.
I learned in 2010 that the entire area on geological map shows copper deficiency. I wonder if that is the problem? I have not tried greensand or anything for correcting mineral deficiencies! I learned of that in a goat forum, and tried adding sunflower seeds to my animals diets to see if it made a difference, boy did it! So that is now part of their daily food. But, it could be the problem in the garden too... how to correct copper deficiencies, dandelions are copper rich, they don't grow in my yard! Perhaps the ones that grow well, don't need copper or other trace minerals? Could it be?
