Engineer & Tina, if your corn is now tasseling (on top) you should notice ears starting to push out from the lower leaves with ear silks soon to follow. To hand pollinate just wait until you see the ear silks and tap the tassels on top so that the pollen falls down on the silks, do this daily until no more pollen falls and the silks start to turn brown. Morning and evening are good times to tap the tassels when the air is still and the pollen falls straight down on the silks. The whole process from silking ears to picking ears takes about 2 weeks so don't wait until Sept to pick them or they will be tough hard ears way past their peak of good eating. Once the silks are dark brown in 10-14 days then peel back the husk and see if the kernals are formed ok, then heat & eat. There's a 3 day period when corn is perfectly heavenly, then another week when it's just good, then it gets tough from there. Happy harvest! PS, when you drive by fields of corn just sitting there for weeks on end with black silks - that's not eating corn, that's livestock corn that's harvested once the kernals are hard as rocks. Keep a close eye on your corn and don't delay harvest once it's ready. Believe me, you don't want to miss that 3 day window when it's perfect. I've read too many posts over the years with sad stories of waiting too long to pick ears, only good for birds after that.

Most seed packs I've bought will specify something like needing light. I use the various seed tables you can google when in doubt or I don't know. I think Jellito has a good one and here is one I pulled up the other night. J.L. Hudson has specific instructions on many seeds. Plants of the SW has Liatris spicata as one needing light to germinate but Liatris punctata doesn't need light. Cleome and Achillea need light. Some seeds need dark, on the other hand. Winter sowing works well for lots of seed but not all. There is no such thing as a 100% successful seeding method that covers all seed and some resent transplanting so they are better planted in situ. For seeds needing very warm temps I still can't see the point of winter sowing but some people get defensive whenever I say that as if I am threatening to come through the computer screen and dump out their jugs. Personally, I would worry about seeds planted in winter rotting and I really do think its a whole lot of unnecessary extra work for seeds only needing two weeks warm to germinate based on my own time limits and habits. Ryse, I am NOT talking about you, its just that sometimes I have had people get defensive if other methods are suggested (like planting a whole stem covered with seeds right in the ground.... ha!:) Liatris is one I would definitely sow in situ too and besides, if it works, I say do it and share the idea. Next year I will just plant the stems and forget taking those seeds off, I was picking stickers out of my fingers this year separating the seeds from the stems. Here is a link that might be useful: http://www.backyardgardener.com/tm1.html This post was edited by GreatPlains1 on Sun, Jan 5, 14 at 15:46

I pinched a couple of my seedlings about a 3 weeks ago. They havnt shown any sign of branching yet and I am reluctant to pinch the others now. They all dont seem to be growing as fast anymore either. I also pinched my original seedling. It has started a side branch now but no other branches. I am worried this little guy will forever only be a one stem plant :( maybe in a zig zag shape after all my future pruning attempts? I did prune another one of my adeniums and it seems to be branching off good. At least 2 branches from beach pruned stem. I hope it keeps going. It will be a cute little guy and i wish to see the lovely black and red flowers again :)

jarry - Just pot those plants into opaque pots or cups (with holes drilled in the bottom), soil-less mix for now, not sure what you mean by "main leaf stem" but you can take off all but the top couple pairs of leaves and pot them deeper than they are now, if stem is only kinked it will be fine. Roots will develop all along the stem underground (in fact, sometimes you will see white bumps above ground if it's really moist, they're called adventitious roots). Not sure what your season is, sounds like you are shooting for harvest in Aug/Sept if plants are that big now - when did you start the seed? But your seasons are reverse of what we have here in N. America, it's hot there now but when is your first frost? What varieties are you growing and what are the DTMs? I'm hoping you can take the next few weeks/month while it's hot to harden these off, but still have 3 months or so of nice weather to get them to harvest. stimey - being rootbound doesn't help, but the reason you try to transplant around 8 weeks is that if the plant is much older/bigger, it starts to go into reproductive phase (getting flowers and fruit), not vegetative (growing) phase, it's kind of like a tween or teenager maturing and then you're trying to get him/her to grow taller when the kid has already entered puberty. Doesn't work (esp. with girls - though with tomato plants it helps to nip the flowers off and plant deeper to get roots along the stem).