Growing Sweet Corn In The Garden

Hello Everyone.  I hope you are doing well these days and that you are having a good week.  Is Summer galloping along for you like it has been for us?  Hard to believe our local schools begin for the next school year in just one week.  We have enjoyed this summer with family, cook-outs, traveling and also working in my garden.

Our front yard filled with the green of Summertime.

And lots of summer green in the back yard looking down the hill.

  If you walk down the patio steps and turn to
the left, and walk down the lane we arrive at the vegetable garden.

Each year my husband takes the tractor and plows the garden getting ready for vegetable seed planting. Then in a week or so he plows again making sure the soil is tilled and ready for planting.  A couple of years ago he brought in a truckload of mushroom compost and then re-plowed in order to mix the compost thoroughly in with the soil.  Mushroom compost in our area is used for enriching the soil.

In the below photo you can see the very tall fence my husband designed in order to prevent the deer from getting into the garden.  Unfortunately, it does not keep the raccoons out.  I will share with you later on what we did to discourage all the other critters from getting in the garden.

Years ago I planted gladiolus bulbs in each corner of the garden.
The below photo shows one of the surviving plants blooming on the garden gate.

We are blessed to have a wonderful gardening store right in the heart of our downtown area.   This wonderful seed and feed store is what remains of the days when so many folks in our area had a farm or a garden and raised livestock.  Folks can still buy food for their horses, cattle, goats, chickens, dogs and rabbits.

They can also buy seeds to grow fruits, vegetables and herbs.  There are many other items available at this 100 year old store such as galvanized wash tubs and hand tools.

On our way into the store we pass by garden sprinklers, fertilizer spreaders, and pots for planting.

What I love about visiting here is you feel like you are stepping back in time by the timeless charm of this old building. 

As you enter you can see the wooden floors of this old store.  I have a feeling they are the original floors from when this store was first constructed back in 1915.  There was a big celebration a couple of years ago when Gramlings turned 100 years old.

In this photo you see the seed packets on each side of the entrance to the store.

And in the bottom photo we see more seeds to choose from located toward the back of the store.
This is where I come to find the seeds for my garden each year.





Below we see a view to the side of the entrance to Gramlings.   You can see the old tin roof.
It looks like it could be the original tin used on this old building.

My main reason for visiting is to find the "Sweet Corn" seeds that I LOVE to grow.  I usually find all the other seeds for the rest of the garden as well.  And, they also have a large selection of vegetable plants located in an outside section.

As you can see from the photo below you can purchase just a few 

seeds for your home garden or enough to plant acres.

There are many pecan trees growing in our area.  I thought it was
interesting to see this "Pecan Picker" available here also.

After purchasing sweet corn seeds from Gramlings,  I prepared the garden and planted six rows of the sweet corn seeds with the rows being about 20 feet long each.  In the below photo we see the rows of corn beginning to come up nicely.  The recommended spacing for the corn rows is about 36 inches apart.

Instructions say to plant corn seeds about 12 inches apart.  Looks like these seeds were planted a little closer than the instructions indicated.  They recommend thinning plants if too close together.  I did not do that this year, but really should because then there is room for each plant to adequately grow and pollinate.

There are other seeds planted in the garden as well.  There are
green beans, cucumbers, okra, squash and sunflower seeds.

Just as the sweet corn was coming up nicely we had a huge rain storm associated with strong winds.
As you can see all of the rows of corn were blown over almost flat on the ground.

My husband and I got busy and staked the corn back up as best as we could  We took heavy string and pulled the stalks of corn back up with support from the string tied to metal stakes on each end of each row as seen in the below photo.  By the next day the sunshine had helped the corn straighten up even more.

My husband reminded me we had a grocery store not too far away from us that sold delicious sweet corn.  I do know that, BUT,  to me it is the greatest pleasure placing that seed in the ground and watching the miracles happen even if it is a lot of work.

The below photo shows what the corn stalks look like when the pollination process is about to begin.  All of those little seed-like things open and spill pollen down over the corn that is beginning to grow.

As I understand the process each one of those white tassels
must be pollinated for the corn to grow completely.

We have had so much rain in our area I am sure the pollination process was not complete.

Each year the pesky raccoons find their way into the corn patch and help themselves.  This year I
happened to find a product at Walmart that looked like it was worth a try.

If you could take a whiff of this Repels-All you would immediately understand how it works.  The ingredients are eggs, garlic and some other bad smelling ingredients.  The smell itself is enough to keep anything out of the garden.  It just smells awful, but apparently is not harmful to plants or critters.

My husband found the spray shown in the below photo.  It too is a deterrent
for all the critters including raccoons because it smells so bad.



So of all things this year the critters did not get the corn as it ripened. However, due to all the rain the corn was not completely pollinated and the whole corn cob did not fill in completely.

They say that when the corn tassels at the top turn brown it is time to pick the corn.
So I got busy and picked every one I could find.

Since all of the corn tassels apparently had not completely pollinated the entire cob did not fill in.
As you can see, only about one-third of the cob filled in with corn kernels.

Someone told me you can drop the corn in boiling water for one minute and then
it is ready to go into the freezer to be cooked at different times.

So even though the corn did not turn out perfect,  at least this year the varmints did not pick it before we could.    The little corn cobs are now all frozen in the freezer waiting to be enjoyed.  I do wonder how the farmers are so successful growing the beautiful corn we see in the grocery store .... More power to them!

I do hope you are enjoying this lovely Summertime.  Wishing 

you many blessings wherever you may be.

Visiting The New Trump International Hotel In Washington, D.C.

Hello Everyone!  How have you been?  Has it been as busy a Summer for you as it has been for us?  

We recently traveled to Washington, D.C. for my husband's annual American College of Radiology meeting.  After the meeting we planned to go visit the new Trump International Hotel we had heard so much about.  Come along with us as we visit this beautiful hotel.....

The new hotel is located at 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, which is between
the United States Capitol Building and the White House.

The new Trump International Hotel is located in the Historic Old Post Office, which is an extravagantly  beautiful old building in the heart of Washington, D.C. This building was remodeled into a luxury hotel by builder Donald Trump who is now President of the United States.  The hotel opened in September of 2016.  We heard so much about this new hotel we were very curious and put it on our "to do" list to see during our Washington visit.

Below we see double doors at the main entrance of the hotel.  They probably do use this entrance sometimes for special events, but the main entrance in use is to the side of the building.

As we drove around to the entrance of the hotel it was very nice to have valet parking.

The below photo shows the inside front entrance of the hotel.
I loved the exquisite pink marble arches and the polished wood.

And the below photo shows one of the halls before reaching the main atrium.

This beautiful hotel has three restaurants, a spa and a very large conference center.

The below photo is from the internet.
There are 263 very large and luxurious guest rooms and suites.

These pretty flowers were decorating a table
in the hall before we entered into the main lobby of the hotel.

How unusual to see an arrangement of orchids and they were real.
This bouquet was also in the entrance hall.

From the side hallway we could see into the main lobby.



Below we see The Grand Lobby, a soaring nine-story atrium
which functions as the hotel's center of activities.

As you can see,  the furniture in this beautiful lobby is a very colorful
mixture of light and darker blue velvet fabrics.

In the below photo we see the Lounge located at the end of the lobby.

Placed across the steel arches are four very large and amazingly beautiful SWAROVSKI chandeliers.



We had previously made lunch reservations at the PRIME restaurant,
which you can see located on the second floor.



Toward the back of the lobby in the above photo you can see the
beautiful marble stairway leading upstairs to the restaurant.

And the below photo is a view from the upstairs restaurant looking down on the lobby below.



Below we see a bit of the lunch "menu" for the day.
When our lunch arrived it looked so delicious I forgot to take a picture.

There were beautiful orchids planted in the planters around the restaurant.

Another photo looking down at the lobby from the restaurant.

It is always nice to see "old glory" on display.  And in this photo you can see some of the
nine stories and the entrance to some of the guest rooms in the hotel.



Looking even higher you can see the glass ceiling all the way up
from the lobby and a portion of the famous clock tower in the below photo.

After our delicious lunch we decided to take a tour of The Famous Clock Tower located in this hotel.  We followed the signs to get there.  There was a glass elevator at the end of the lobby which took us up part of the way. And then another elevator took us the rest of the way. The Clock Tower is open to the public and is operated by The National Park Service.  They tell us they usually have about 1,500 visitors each day.

This Clock Tower is the third highest building in Washington, D.C.

The entrance to the tower is free and does not require tickets.  How nice is that for wonderful views of Washington, D.C.

When we reached the Tower we could view the city from each of the four windows.  Below we see down Pennsylvania Avenue all the way to the United States Capitol Building.

And from this window in the below photo we can see the Washington Monument, the Jefferson Memorial and the Lincoln Monument.  I'm not sure, but that might be the White House on the right side.

As we drove away from the Trump International Hotel we were driving down Pennsylvania Avenue, which has been called America's Main Street,  or the Grand Boulevard,  or even The Heart of the Nation.

It was a special treat for us to be in our Nation's Capitol in the heart of Washington, D.C.  

I hope you enjoyed coming along with us as we visited the beautiful Trump International Hotel.



Wishing you a very nice rest of your week and a wonderful Summertime wherever you may be.