Can sweet corn be planted near popcorn in the garden? (2024)

FAQs

Can sweet corn be planted near popcorn in the garden? ›

Answer: Sweet corn should be isolated from popcorn and field corn to prevent cross-pollination. The quality of the sweet corn will be lowered if it's cross-pollinated by other types of corn. For example, sweet corn pollinated by popcorn will be tough and starchy.

Selecting your Seeds

Use your popcorn kernels from the kitchen cabinets. Yes, you can grow them! There are more specialized popcorn seeds that are meant for shoot production, but your standard popcorn seeds will grow shoots too.

The different types of sweet corn, or field corn, should be separated by at least 250 feet or by at least 14 days in maturity. The pollen from one corn plant will influence the kernel of another plant.

Brassicas - All members of the cabbage family including broccoli, Brussels sprouts, kale, cauliflower should be planted apart from corn. Corn shades the brassicas too much, stunting their growth. As well as both crops are also heavy feeders and will compete for nutrients in the soil.

Melons are another good companion plant for corn as they provide a lot of the same benefits as winter squash. As with winter squash, large melon leaves can shield the soil around corn plants, keeping weeds at bay and slowing evaporation rates so you won't need to water as much.

Answer: Sweet corn should be isolated from popcorn and field corn to prevent cross-pollination. The quality of the sweet corn will be lowered if it's cross-pollinated by other types of corn. For example, sweet corn pollinated by popcorn will be tough and starchy.

Sweet corn has a more tender hull and produces more sugar than other varieties. Both sweet corn and popcorn (maize) are from the same family of cereals, largely grown in the America. But the sweet corn and maize used to make popcorn are different variety of cereals produced from the same plant.

If you plant them too close, you will end up with starchy, very un-sweet corn. To keep your corn separate and sweet as advertised, you must have at least 50 feet between blocks of corn.

However, if soil moisture conditions are adequate it is likely ideal to not go much deeper than 2 – 2.25 inches. If planted too deep and soil moisture conditions are adequate, emergence can become delayed, thus further exposing the corn seed to various stresses (e.g., disease, insects, etc.).

In addition, different crops usually remove different micronutrients from the soil. By growing the same crop at the same site year after year this will usually result in depletion of that micro nutrient.

What should I plant next to tomatoes to keep bugs away? ›

Nasturtium is a good companion plant for tomatoes because it acts as a trap crop. Nasturtium traps pests such as aphids away from your tomatoes. In addition, Nasturtiums add cheerful color to the garden, and their flowers are edible.

Corn is very sensitive to frost; do not plant soil temperature is at least 60°F (16°C), or 65°F (18°C) for super-sweet varieties. Usually, this is 2 or 3 weeks after the last frost in spring.

At the recommended spacing of 2 plants per square foot, you might get about a dozen ears of corn in half of a 3x6 raised bed. There's another challenge, too. Corn is wind-pollinated. To get ears with a full complement of kernels, you need to plant a block of same-variety corn plants that can pollinate one another.

Due to its tall growth habit, corn can serve as a windbreak or to cast shade on pepper plants during parts of the day. Corn is also said to also act as a trap crop for aphids, which may keep them off the pepper plants.

Popcorn seed will germinate in approximately seven days and emerges from the soil in 10 days. It is the moisture in the soil, which dissolves important elements for the plant such as nitrogen, phosphate and potash. The popcorn roots absorb this nutrient rich moisture to "feed' the seed and cause it to germinate.

You'll Need Fertile Seed

No, you can't open a bag of popcorn from the grocery store and plant it. Most store bought popcorn isn't fertile because of the heating and sterilization processes it undergoes. You'll need to buy fertile popcorn from your local garden center and there are plenty to choose from on the internet.

Zea mays everta

Some strains of corn (taxonomized as Zea mays) are cultivated specifically as popping corns. The Zea mays variety everta, a special kind of flint corn, is the most common of these.