Shelley, I won't comment much on soil temperature since you already noted some information about it. I doubt if any corn will germinate with temperatures down around 40F and it will take up to 3 weeks (if it doesn't rot :o( with temps at 50°F. In my area, the soil doesn't warm up above that until we are well into the growing season. Regarding cross-pollination: I often grow a little ornamental corn. It is always as isolated from the sweet corn as I can get it but they are in the same garden. Maturing at different times, cross-pollination isn't much of a problem but it does occur. The result is a few brightly colored seeds in a few ears of the sweet corn. Think of it this way, if we crossed a white-faced Hereford with a Black Angus - we'd expect white-faced black calves. There'd be a subtle difference in the taste of the beef from the meat of the 2 parent breeds. With corn, one parent plant grows the ear the other parent plant is growing the pollen laden tassel. And, we are -gasp- eating their babies!! Steve

You also may have picked the fruit prematurely last year. What was your signal that it was time to pick. I'm amazed at how many people arbitrarily choose when to pick ALL of the fruit on a tree and then complain about the quailty of the fruit. It would never occur to me to do that. Ripening times vary from year to year. This year where I live is several weeks ahead of last year. Were the seeds brown when you picked the green apples last year? Did the apples come off easily? Were some mature apples dropping on the ground? Were the apples any good? Were they starchy? If in doubt of what they are like ripe you may choose to leave some on until there are signs of being past ripe and then you will have seen the full development.

Believe it or not, I've seen rows of them here growing in dappled sun locations or areas with high shade and they have bloomed just fine. Mine bloomed last year with what might be considered part sun (~4 - 6 hours). I think some other non-blooming reasons could also be timing of when they were planted and/or sprouted and whether the growing season was conducive for them to get to blooming stage before a frost, including enough water once they get going. We had below normal temperatures most of May last year and mine sat doing little or nothing on top that entire month, only starting to grow around June/July and finally blooming in August. Also I noticed that some offsets might be fairly immature and may not bloom the first year.

Good for you, except for scarcity of the replacement pump. Did you check eBay for new or used pumps? The Fisher & Paykel toploader that I bought in 1999 carried on for 22 years until it went dead a few months ago, apparently due to a water leak of some ilk that zapped the controller board. My nephew had been using it for several years after it had passed through two other family members after myself, with one repair in 2011 (pump replacement). They live 2-1/4 hrs away and have a new baby so it wasn't a viable scenario for me to investigate it. They bought a used LG, a couple years old from someone who was moving and couldn't take it along. Anyway, appliance longevity statistics are a moving target. A machine that went for 10 years until a failure today was bought 10 years ago so is not as much relevant to expectations for one bought new next week.