Spacing for Growing Corn

When you plant your own sweet corn in your backyard garden, you can harvest corn at its freshest and most delicious. Corn develops both male and female flowers on the same plant -- a male tassel and a female ear. For the best results, you want pollination to occur only within the corn variety you plant in your own garden, and not other corn growing near yours. One way to protect your corn's pollination is the spacing for corn rows and the row arrangement.

Garden spade
Compost
Granular fertilizer (16-16-8)
Hoe

Instructions

- 1
  Cultivate the planting area in the spring after the soil reaches a temperature of 60 degrees F. Work the soil down to a depth of at least 8 inches with the garden spade. Add about 4 inches of compost over the soil and sprinkle between 1 and 2 lbs. of fertilizer over every 100 square feet of soil. Work these ingredients into the soil well with the garden spade.
- 2
  Create blocks of rows for planting with the hoe. Make double rows for pollination, spacing the rows between 2 and 3 feet apart, depending on how much garden space you have. Make the rows as long as space permits.
- 3
  Plant corn seeds in the prepared rows, spacing them approximately every 12 inches along the rows.
- 4
  Cover the corn seeds with 1 to 2 inches of soil, patting the soil firmly over the seeds.
- 5
  Keep the soil evenly moist while the seeds germinate and during the times when tassels emerge and the ears mature.

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