Hey everyone, for everyone not too familiar with the title, a 'Mielie' is the South African Word for corn.
Here I planted Giant Glass Corn, this is the multicoloured heirloom corn I purchased on www.livingseeds.co.za check more about that here.. https://livingseeds.co.za/glass-gem-corn.html?search=glass+corn
I did a little experiment.. I planted a few rows of these amazing mielies in rows as well as a few kernels in seed trays to plant into the fields later on! Turns out the ones in the seedling trays are growing faster which is rather funny given the roots are limted in terms of their ability to grow as they are hindered by the plastic container. I was fertilizing them however and the soil was probably better than the ones I planted in the rows!
Now to transplant the Mielies that I had germinated in the Seedling Trays into the rows of perennial basil. The reasoning here is to try and keep cooler the perennial basil in the heat of the day, turns out this plant likes semi shade as all the others in my shady spots do much better than full sun!
A nice shot of the rows of perennial basil on the right, in my opinion one of the best Bee-Foods available. These just need to green up and produce more flowers, hoping that with the bigger mielies rendering shade this will happen!
As you can see with all the plants in the background I live on a Nursery, truly such a blessing for a bee, plant and nature lover like myself!
This is somewhat of an 'oxymoron' as the idea is for the corn to render shade to the basil and not the other way around. Corn (Mielies) needs full sun all day, Perennial Basil not. That role will reverse in around a month when the corn grows tall and wide, hopefully my plan works?
All planted and done, this Mielie should in my estimation be producing some nice corn in around 2 months or less by which time it will be nice and big rendering good shade and cooler temps to surrounding Perennial Basil!
Nature the incredible! I trust you have a super cool week further!
Cheer$;)