Dear Ray - Amazing photos once again. I am inspired to grow beautiful corn like you. I am using AL's Mix. One question. You drainage holes look further down the container than mine do. Do you think that will make a significant difference since I will have less medium for my little/big corn? In other words my water reserve is greater; however, I don't have your nifty auto watering system Since I am building a new corntainer today . . . I would like to mimic current successes. Any words of wisdom would be appreciated. L.

Again.... We can ALL be right. Lets just not get too self-righteous about it. Different people yearn for a different outcome with their turf. So VERY true. Tolerance is one of the things I'm working on. I get brown patch every year and corn meal works for me every year. In Texas if you read the bottle and try to apply a commercial chemical fungicide, the only day of the year when all the temperature and rain forecast conditions are met is January 17th. Unfortunately fungus hits in the summer when it is too hot, too dry, too wet, or too uncertain to apply the chemicals. That's why I tried the corn meal, which has no environmental restrictions on the use. Fortunately for me it works. It does take THREE FULL weeks to see the results with corn meal. I realize that is a problem when your lawn is melting away in front of you. I had the same issue when I used chemicals. I'd ignore the label temps and such and apply anyway. A week later it was worse so I'd try something else (and ignore the warning). At this point I would be out about $80 and my grass continued to melt away. The back-up "organic" cure for fungal disease is baking soda. While it is approved for organic use, it is a non selective fungicide and really is not good for your soil. Still, it kills most diseases and leaves the soil ready for an expensive treatment with compost (or inexpensive treatment of compost tea). I'm not sure what the application rate is because I've never had to use it. I believe they dissolve it in water and spray it on. Just guessing at a starting app rate I would try 3 ounces per gallon of final spray. I was never good with dilutions and mixtures in school, so good luck getting that right :-)

Okiehobo, Watermelons (and, in fact, all melons) are considered good companion plants for corn. The one thing you have to remember is that you will have to be very careful when harvesting the corn to ensure that you don't step on and break your watermelon vines. Normally, I interplant my corn mostly with winter squash and pumpkins, but I do plant my cantaloupes, muskmelons, and watermelons on the western and southern edges of the corn/squash/bean planting. I leave about 5' between my "Three Sisters" bed and the row of melons. Siting them in this way allows the melons to get lots of sunshine. If you are only growing melons and not squash or pumpkins with your corn, you wouldn't have to leave that 5' of empty space--I just leave it so the pumpkins don't overwhelm the melons. As for as the right melon variety, pretty much any watermelon I've grown has done well here. If you want a smaller melon, Blacktail Mountain is the best-flavored by far in our garden and it is a very early melon--about 70 days. You'll probably have to order it online--I've never seen it in stores. Other melon varieties that produce very flavorful small melons include Asahi Miyako and Janosik (both from Seeds From Italy), Sugar Baby, Bush Sugar Baby and Yellow Doll. Larger melons that have done well here for us (but not as well as the ones listed above) include Ali Baba, Orangeglo, Moon and Stars, Chelsea, Chris Cross, and Royal Golden. When I interplant pumpkins and winter squash with sweet corn, I put 80% of the squash plants around the outer permimeter of the corn. I only put about 20% of the squash plants right in the middle of the corn patch. I would suggest you do the same with your watermelons. The reason is that a thick corn patch can shade the squash foiage so much that the plants grow a bit more slowly and are somewhat slower to produce. Since watermelons have smaller leaves than pumpkins and winter squash, it will be even more important to plant them on the perimeter of the corn so they will get enough sun when the sun plants get thicker and taller. For the plants I sow within the rows of corn, I deliberately leave "bare" spots in the rows of corn so that I have empty places to plant the young squash plants. Even when you plant your melons on the perimeters of your corn patch, the melons will creep and crawl throughout the corn. The entire Mirai line of corn have a reputation for having very good flavor, but they aren't as special as the hype would have you believe. Nowadays, breeders have created many supersweet corns that have amazing flavor and Mirai is simply one of those--no better in flavor than a hundred or two hundred or more other supersweet and synergystic types. One thing about supersweet corns is that everyone who tastes their "first" supersweet variety (as opposed to standard sweet corn) is absolutely, positively convinced that whatever particular variety they have is THE best corn on earth. In reality, though, all supersweet and synergystic corn varieties have very good to outstanding flavor if you like the extra sweet or super sweet flavor. If you prefer a corn that is not overly sweet and has real, "old-fashioned corn flavor", you would want to plant an heirloom variety, and not a modern supersweet or synergystic hybrid. When OSU trialed a lot of corn varieties in 2007, Mirai was found to have very good flavor, but other than that, it did not necessarily grow or produce better than, or as well as, other corn varieties tested. However, I think it will grow just fine for you. Like all corns, it is prone to lodging and, if that occurs, you'll need to try to correct the lodging as soon as you can after it occurs. OSU made specific mention in the report on their corn trials that lodging probably had reduced their Mirai yield. Mirai was developed in Illinois and is better suited to their type of weather than ours. It is grown commercially in Japan but not here and there is a very specific reason for that. In the USA, commercial corn growers want corn plants that can be harvested by machines and Mirai doesn't--it needs to be hand-harvested. In Japan, corn is more often grown in smaller plots and the Japanese hand-harvest it and they simply love Mirai there. Hope this info helps. Dawn

I live in Orlando and got hit with a fungus problem last year in one 20 x 20 area. I attacked it with Corn Meal I bought from Walmart. The grass that was affected slowly recovered and is very healthy this year. I don't think soybean meal will help much with a fungus problem from what I have read on this and other boards. They either recommend corn meal or milk/water, or commercial product sold from Home Depot. From what I read, don't put fert. down if you have a fungus problem. This might make it much worse. Cure the fungus before applying fert. Some people recommend milk/water combination if you can't use corn meal. I used the CGM in March for prevent of crab grass/weeds and it worked 100 percent. I had zero problems crabgrass this year but the downsize is the cost for CGM, 50.00 for 50lbs. I used Bradfield Organics brand CGM. Corn Meal - I could not find a large amount of Corn Meal until 15 minutes ago when I found a local ethnic store that sells 50 lbs for 18 dollars, which for me, is a decent price. From reading the last few days about Corn Meal as a prevent/cure for fungus it seems to have a pretty good following with the organic lawn people. So I will buy some tomorrow and put it down Friday and once a month until the rains go away in Oct. The cracked corn is different from the CGM. The CGM is really good fertilizer but expensive. It really prevented my weed problem and "greened up" my lawn. I've "gone organic" on my lawn for about 1.5 years and for the most part and happy with the results. It is a "learning curve" for the fungus problem and obtaining CGM. I liked the green results from soybean meal too. It is 18 dollars for 50 lbs down here. There advice I got from this and other boards has been very helpful. Mowing high, water deep/infrequent, CGM worked well. I had a terrible lawn when I started and it has greatly improved. A few tips - - I ripped out the worse parts and put down alfalfa and black cow mixed together. Then I put down the sod, with more alfalfa on top. That section is deep dark green after one year and weed free. It borders my neighbor who has nothing but weeds but those weeds never grow on that section of my lawn. Amazing.... So using Black Cow/Alfalfa if you have to redo sections of your lawn is something to consider. - The alfalfa down here is sold for horse feed...same with the soybean meal, dried molasses. CGM is different from the corn meal and cracked corn. If you rip out your lawn make sure you prep your yard before dropping new sod. There is another site (best lawn info) dedicated to organic lawn info. They have some great info too and some amazing results. Good luck!!!