Corn Tassels

The corn has been in the ground for only 2 months and already my small patch of sweet corn has started putting out the male flowers that sprout from the top of the plants.  This variety of sweet corn has a very short growing season and to be honest they aren't very tall.  Some of the plants hardly reach my knee.

The plants on the right are the sweet corn.

 

This is the first plant to send up it's tassel. 

 

It is also the first plant to send out silks. 

 

The other; larger corn growing here is the dent corn.

 

As you can see it is nearly waist high.  This corn is from the 10 foot tall corn I grew last year.  I saved seeds from the biggest and best looking cobs and planted them in the spring.  This variety of corn has a longer growing season so it will not cross pollinate with the sweet corn growing next to it.  I also planted it later than the sweet corn just to be even more certain that the two varieties don't cross pollinate.  It still has a few more feet to go before it will send up it's own tassels.  I planted many more seeds this year of this corn so I am hoping for a decent harvest.  If the harvest is small then it will just be a supplement to my chicken's diet.  If it is decent I hope to save a lot of money this winter by grinding the chicken's food from what I have grown here.  Chances are I will need a lot more corn than what is growing here to feed the flock for the whole winter, but it is a good start.