Tradition,

Sounds like you've put a lot of effort (and quality) into your bed. It looks great. If it's going to get covered up for the summer, I'd say you could probably add a few more layers, as it's all going to break down and compact over the next 3 months.

I'm sure it'd be fine if you called it quits now, but if it's going to be locked down for a few months, you may as well toss in as many additional scraps, clippings, etc as possible. It can only extend the life of the bed and provide more fuel for the (microbial) fire.

The Tradition, you have a nice bed to start with but if it was my bed, I would add more layers, corn likes a lot of nitrogen so I would add some of the cottonseed or soybean meal. I would also try to use a pitchfork around the soil to loosen a little bit, I tell you this because in the community garden they put raised beds without loosen any soil and put about 6 inches of compost, for the small crops works great but not for bigger crops like tomatoes, they don't grow like they are supposed to. And corn is also a big crop that grows strong roots, I had a very successful crop when I grew corn in one of my raised beds one season...

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Silvia

Jack
I was thinking that your 5x5 space is
just a wee bit too small for a patch of corn -
doesn't it need to be spread out more?

But thanks to Silvia for that geat picture!
Silvia, is that a 3 Sisters-type Garden? How many seeds did you
plant in there and how much space did you use?

One last question- after the new plot has "cured", what date will you plant the seeds?

Thanks for the education!

Susie

Here's a shot of my corn from Spring. I did everything "wrong"... straight line instead of planted in a block, shady site, last-minute soil amendments, overhead watering... and yet they are still producing very nice ears (even though they're on the small side).

Square-foot gardeners put one plant per each square foot. So, you could have 25 plants in a 5x5 area, probably much more than my family needs.

Traditionally (depending on variety) you might space 8 inches apart in row, with 2-3 feet between rows, and a minimum of four rows in a block. I would not be able to fit four rows in this area using that spacing.

My hope is that the extra-fertile soil of the lasagna garden (I also plan to incorporate plenty of 10-10-10 at planting and sidedressing periodically) will allow for success using the Square-Foot gardening spacing.

This post was edited by TheTradition on Tue, Jun 4, 13 at 19:11

Thank you Susie, remember my raised beds by the windows? they are 4x8, I don't wait for the beds to cure, the heavy layers go in the bottom and just light layers like black cow, peat moss, compost go on top. The next season for us would be around August-September. I don't remember how many seeds I had, but not all the seeds germinate so I probably planted them 6 inches apart, after the corn reach some size, pole beans and winter squash was planted. I had 3 kinds of corn, purple, red and a large kernel variety.

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Silvia