Corn, Corn and more Corn!
Corn means summer! Whether that is eating sweet corn with your dinner, or driving by a beautiful corn field. For me, seeing a corn field grow and eating sweet corn will always hold a special place in my heart.
All growing up my grandpa grew corn, he grew it to feed the cows during the winter. We would have fields of corn, and when fall would come we chopped it and then put it in a giant pile to make silage. Silage is big pile of corn that is left to crust and partly ferment, which makes it really hot and easier to digest for the cows. Doing this provided the cows with a nice hot meal in the winter when mixed with a bale of hay.
As a kid, I loved (and still do) watching the corn grow in the fields, seeing the stalks go from tiny little spouts, to 2 ft. tall, and then to 6-7 ft. stocks. My grandpa started growing a few rows of sweet corn for us and I can remember him taking my sisters and myself out and showing us which ears of corn were ready for picking and eating, and which to leave a little longer. I’ll never forget the day I watched my grandpa pick, shuck, and eat an ear of raw corn. I thought he was crazy, until I tried some, eating raw sweet corn will forever remind me of my grandpa.
I was on a foreign exchange when we thought we were harvesting our last corn crop here at the ranch. I can remember crying in my room, thinking that I was never going help with or see another corn crop here at the ranch. Then a few years later much to my sheer excitement, my heart was filled with the news of planting a corn maze!
Our most asked question here at the ranch is: how do you plant/grow the corn maze? Well friends, I am here to answer that question! First thing we had to do was decide where to plant the maze and make sure that we had irrigation to that field. When we checked those boxes, we moved to planting. We are blessed these days with GPS satellite tractors that play a huge role in the planting of the corn maze. A company by the name of MazePlay comes out to do the actual planting of our maze. We simply come up with the idea/design for the maze and submit it to our friends at MazePlay and they complete the design and send it back for final approval.
Once the maze is planted all we have to do is water, which we do with hand lines, and flood irrigation (irrigation is next week’s post), and keep the weeds under control. Corn grows really well with heat and water, and the maze is looking amazing this year!! The corn field fills us with joy every time we walk by, it seems to be the only thing that has gone according to plan this year, and boy oh boy, are we grateful for that!
We are so blessed to be able to grow our corn maze and have it bring back memories of growing up. I hope that your families are making new memories playing in it. Later this week we will be revealing our maze design and I’ll attach it to this post, so stay tuned! So, cheers to all the memories the corn brings, and cheers to the memories that are to come!
