Working on last year's failures

Last year in our garden, we had some successes and some very big failures.

One of those failures was our "corn garden." It was hard to call it a corn garden because we planted corn three times and didn't have any corn -- well, maybe we had a few very pitiful ears, but for all the effort it was just a huge failure. We didn't really know if it was the soil, the weather, the seed, or a failure to apply fertilizer correctly.
 
During the summer, we sent a soil sample in to our county extension agent and received a report telling us we needed to apply some lime and the fertilizer we needed to grow vegetables successfully, which was 10-10-10.

Later in the fall, we decided to plant some greens there. We felt after the failure of the summer, we needed to plant something else. The greens grew, but not that well. They were scraggly and most of them didn't grow very well. I think I also recall adding some manure to it, too.

This spring, we almost didn't plan in that spot. We were beginning to think we needed to amend it with some kind of cover crop and try it next year. But, when we got to the point of needing to plant corn the main garden, it was practically full so we decided it really couldn't hurt to try and grow something in the smaller, lower garden.

This is how it looked when the seeds began to sprout. Promising, but not wonderful.

I can tell you that now the garden is still not the perfect place to plant, but I do think we can now officially call it a "corn garden." We now have rows of corn growing well and looking pretty and there are even some okra plants, yellow squash, melons and maybe a pumpkin.

We did have to fill in places where corn didn't grow at first. The new corn sprouted and has almost caught up with the older corn. We are very encouraged and think that one day, if we continue to plant, it will really be a nice garden spot. There is a lot to be said for just not giving up -- that will be a good object lesson for me when I get discouraged.