If you're planning to grow it, you may consider some of the more traditional, organic methods: pairing it with ducklings (optimally, the semi-wild aigamo -- 1 per every 50 square meters, plus shelter for them and fence to protect them from predators), optionally fish (optimally, roach), and optionally a fern, azolla (duckweed). It's often called the "aigamo method" farming because of the ducks. I read about this a while back, and found it really interesting; it's starting to take off in Japan; there have been a number of studies that found it at least as effective as hand-weeding and applying pesticides/fertilizers. Neither fish nor ducks hurt the growing rice (but they will go after weeds); they both eat pests (esp. the ducks), they both add fertilizer; the azolla is a nitrogen fixer and trap crop (as well as duck fodder); the ducks tend not to eat too many of the fish because the cloudy water and the azola makes them hard to find; and the ducks' hunting for weeds and weed seeds helps aerate the soil. Depending on whether you want to or not, you can also harvest fish, animal feed from the azolla, duck eggs, and duck meat, all from the same paddy. You leave the ducks as free-range until the rice starts to mature (if you don't take them in then, they'll eat the rice). If you want meat from the ducks, they need to be grainfed for a bit after you take them in, but the early rearing is entirely accomplished by their eating of weeds and pests.

Josh - let me see if I can answer some of your corn questions. I live at the edge of about 1 million acres of the stuff! I don't know where you live but it would be a great road trip to travel through the midwest during the summer. You could see for yourself the incredible vastness of the cornfields. What Gandle is talking about is field corn, better known as dent corn. It is not sweet corn for consumption on the dinner table. Dent corn is used in animal fodder, the food industry (corn syrup) and industry (biodiesel, cosmetics, etc). 79,000 square feet of corn sounds like alot, but consider this, the U.S. grew 42% of the world's corn in 2006. That's an incredible number. It's 283.3 MILLION metric tons, 11.1 BILLION bushels. Someone could probably do the math to calculate what that pile would look like. Out of the number, 54% went to feed, 19% was exported and 27% to food, seed, and industrial purposes. The corn is processed in the field. The combine "combines" the processes of harvesting, treshing and cleaning the grain. The grain is then transferred directly from the combine into 18-wheel grain trucks that deliver it to the storage facilities. You can travel out to the Mississippi river and watch the grain travel downstream in large grain barges. As far as the fields go, here in Illinois there's a joke - There are two fields between Chicago and St. Louis....one is corn and the other is soybeans. I can tell you that farmers will plant every available square inch of land, sometimes negotiating around telephone poles, trees, whatever obstacle might present itself. There are pockets of land 2 acres or less that are planted each year. One of the most amazing sights I've ever seen was when a farmer was disking under the soil in November. There was steam rising as the warm, black soil made contact with the cold air. It was stunningly beautiful. Here is a link that might be useful: dent corn

My hope was very much that it was overly pessimistic, and I think that's going to be the case. I must feel confident, I didn't spend the afternoon throwing together makeshift cold frames or hauling out the stack of old tablecloths though I may still roll a couple of plant carts with germinating perennials into the carport. The numbers I'm getting now are more in the 31F range and only briefly that cold at right around dawn. It was that cold several mornings last week before giving way to beautiful afternoons, nothing seemed to mind the chill. It's raining now and 48F - what a difference a day makes.

I've decided to transform the leaf mould bin into a compost bin sooner rather than later. Instead of emptying out all of the leaves, I've started incorporating grass clippings and kitchen/garden scraps into the bin, making sure it gets a good green/brown ratio. Over time, by turning the existing brown materials in with the new green materials, it should make good compost. The negative about this is that I won't be able to use this stuff for about two years, when I could have actually collected leaf mould in one year. The positive is that compost is more nutrient rich but can also be used the same way, as a top dressing or mulch, for water retention and weed suppression, but giving those plants a boost that leaf mould may not do. I'll work green materials in for about a year (or unless we get it so full that it absolutely can't hold any more) then setup another swimming pool composter up. On appx April 2018, the plan is to collect compost from the first bin. On appx April 2019, I'll collect compost from the 2nd bin. Then, April 2020, from the first bin, and on and on. Meanwhile, I'm slowly building up a small farm, with rabbits, cows, chickens, and eventually, ducks, possibly turkeys, etc. Rabbit poop = instant garden fertilizer + worm food, for vermicomposting, to collect worm castings for the garden, and the worms themselves could feed some fish, for a future aquaponics setup. Cow, chicken, duck, and turkey poop will be composted. As of right now, it's all about slowly moving forward, to try to obtain a balance, where everything works together.