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Showing posts with label sweet corn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sweet corn. Show all posts

Aug 6, 2012

Boiling sweet corns

"Sweet corns should be boiled as soon as you've harvested them"

That's what my wife's aunt, my gardening teacher, said me. Harvested corns can loose water faster than we expect. That's why my teacher advised me. Today I harvested 2 fresh sweet corns and followed her advice.

 I pour water and the sweet corns in a deep pan, added some spoonfuls of salt and boiled them for 3 minutes. I used a dish as a weight for pressing the sweet corns to boil the whole part of them.
 Water in corns determines the freshness. So I wrapped them with plastic wrapping sheet and store them in my fridge. They will be served in today's dinner.

Jul 13, 2012

Today's harvests and my wife's birthday.

 It's been sunny in the last few days during a rainy season, which was the important opportunity to work in my garden. We have to watch the growth speed of summer vegetables like cucumbers since they can grow much faster in this season due to tons of rain and strong sunlight. One of my cucumbers became too big while a few days. Big cucumbers has a thick skin but less water inside so we can't use them for salads. Well, I'll have to pickled it in rice bran.

  The fruits of my black chili have also grown well and I harvested some of them with green peppers. They were moderately size to enjoy their taste so I'll stir-fly them with sliced beef in oyster sauce, which is my favorite recipe.

  My egg-plants' growth is slower than usual with fewer and smaller fruits. I think the slow growth might be caused by consecutive cropping.
 The tomato harvesting season has arrived! I found many tomato fruits have been mature turning red, whose size were as big as my fist. I'm very excited with this good results since I failed to grow bigger and delicious tomatoes many times. The success is due to Less fertilizer. Too much fertilizer could be consumed for their leave's growth not for their fruits. My tomatoes are "Momotaro/桃太郎" which is popular variety in Japan.
 My sweet corncobs were about 15cm/7inches. I've not found any damage by bugs yet.
 Today is my wife's birthday so I rushed to a flower shop after working in my garden and a floral designer made a flower bouquet for my wife.

Flowers, fruits and love for my wife


Jul 1, 2012

Growth report in the mid rainy season

 Now it's in the middle of a rainy season (Tsuyu/梅雨) in Japan and it has been raining through the whole of the last week in Osaka. As I mentioned in the previous blog, the much rain damaged my carrots. But the rain in this time is also essential for summer vegetables like tomatoes, cucumbers and egg-plants.
  
 My summer vegetables are growing well and I can expect to harvest them in a few weeks.
Young "Momotaro" are still green but growing healthily.
Some of my Momotaros are starting ripen turning red.
My egg-plants are also having fruits while some of
them are fed by bugs.
Shishito peppers

A flower of black chili
My sweet corns are blooming and producing pollens


Oct 18, 2010

Sweet corns end


 My sweet corns were cleaned up out of a farming ridge after we had harvested them successfully. The corns were my second challenge after bugs had made the first corns dead. My family are very satisfied with the harvest since the corns were very sweet.

 I'm thinking what I should plant after sweet corns and onions and leeks are among my list.


Oct 16, 2010

Today's harvest

3 egg-plants and 4 okras

3 sweet corns

My son biting on a boiled corn.

Oct 13, 2010

Enjoying boiled sweet corns!

Boiling sweet corns for 15mins in salt water. 
Small amount of salt can make the taste sweeter.


I'm astonished how shiny and beautiful boiled corns are...look like precious stones.

Today's harvest

Today's harvest list


1.....2 sweet corns

2.....2 egg plants

3.....4 okras

My first successful harvest of sweet corns.

  I harvested my sweet corns at last today and I'm very excited when I saw beautifully ripe corns!!!
 As you can see the miserable result of my first sweet corns on "Bug's attack against my sweet-corn" in my blog , I decided to start my second try and I made the use of what I'd learned from the first try.


 The most important thing which led to the success is controlling pests. I checked ears and leaves of corns every day, found and picked up bugs and killed all of them. Yes, I just carried out "F.P.K method" more throughly.Actually much less number of bugs had been found.Plus I used small amount of pesticide.I didn't know how many bugs in ears of corns and I had to use it to make sure the health of corns.


 The second point is thinning out extra corn ears to secure nutrition for most prospective corns. Usually a sweet corn tree has 2 or 3 ears but I cut smaller ones and left a biggest one. That's why much bigger and riper corns have been grown.

Oct 1, 2010

Persisting bugs in sweet corns.

 Even after I did "F.P.K method" and used pesticide, I found 3 larvas (young worms of European corn-borer) in my sweet corn ears.

 Well I know bugs are persisting to survive but I can not tolerate them.What I keep doing for a while is monitoring leaves, fruits, and even roots of my vegetables where bugs can habit, hide and survive and carrying out "F.P.K".

 I realized I should be so persisting that I can ward them off to protect my vegetables.

Sep 26, 2010

Bug's attacking again!

 I and my wife were shocked to find many bugs (young-worms of corn-borer ) , which had attacked my sweet corns and made them dead, have been found again in corn's leaves and trunks.

 We determined to stop the recurrence!!!

 The measure we took is "F.P.K",which I call and stands for "Finding, Picking up, and Killing all of them". It's a very painstaking job but we found only 6 bugs.

 We finally realized we are required to use pesticide to some extent for warding off bugs more effectively and bought a kind of organic pesticide in a home-depo near my house.

 We have been pursuing 100% organic farming but facing the fact we'd encountered, some extent of dependence on chemical substance like pesticide may be acceptable, I think.





Sep 5, 2010

Bug's attack against my sweet-corn

It's so shocking that I found my sweet corns have stood dead with trunks,leaves and fruits turning yellow.


While I was looking at corns to find the cause of the phenomenon, I found some holes on their trunks as the photos shown below.


Finally, I found the cause of the death of my corns.
It's a kind of bugs that had intruded into them and made the trunks hollow.


What I saw in the hole on trunks is a pupa of European cornborer.


I had to determined to cut out all of the corns to prevent expansion of the bug's attack.

This is my first try to raise corns and I've learned how serious bug's attack is....

I would like viewers to share this situation and give me your ideas to prevent that.


Jul 18, 2010

Growing corns


 Our sweet corns have been growing so much since the end of a rainy season with lots of sunshine that the corns have tassels.

 My kids love sweet corns and they are looking for eating corns grilled with soy sauce.

 I set up "corn supporters" which can help corns grow upright and stand against strong wind as shown below.