Corn and beans, 2010

Corn started out quite well once harvesting time came.  It was a small patch so i wasn't expecting a high yield or anything.  I don't eat corn (too starchy though i used to love it), so it was mainly grown for the rest of my family to have.
As a reminder to myself i planted:
Golden Bantam
Incredible
and
Stowell's Evergreen

I had planted them in blocks in the order listed, the Stowell's in the back.  The Golden Bantam and the Incredible did quite well. The Incredible seemed more insect resistant tnan the Golden Bantam. I did try throwing around some Seven Dust early on to keep the darned earwigs out of the husks and i used BT sporadically in attempt to quell the earworms.  This seemed to help a bit- still got some nasties but not too terrible in the end.
The only real disappointment was the Stowell's Evergreen.  I think it germinates slower, matures slower and that put it at a disadvantage. I got some very large  ears on the stalks- but out of these 10"+ ears, only maybe 20 kernels were filled out.  I understand this is a pollination issue.  I'm not sure if it was because the soil in the back 4' of garden was cooler than the 8' in front of it that the rest of the corn went into (it was all under row cover at the time of planting IIRR- i'll have to go back and look)... i don't know if it was the lack of water---  the silks on the whole plot of all three types dried out as if they were ripe and ready well before they were- which made harvesting tricky.
The stalks of them all are browned out now so i know whatever was left on them is past now.  I knocked the stalks down the other day so they might break down better over the winter and early spring.

I had planted some of the purple podded string beans between the corn stalks for kicks, but i think the dry weather with the lack of direct sun didn't do the beans any favors.  I'm guessing that beans may be best grown with corn when the corn is planted in thin rows, not blocks.  The beans mostly ended up with woody pods even when they were small enough that they should have been tender.  I got about a 1/4 pound of the purple beans before the next batch came in almost inedible.

The Provider bush beans, however, were stellar. They are definitely on the list for next summer.  I lost count of how much i picked, but it was every other day about a pound for more than 3 weeks.  They got ahead of me eventually,  i probably could have gotten a few more whole pounds out of the planting if i hadn't lost track.
I'll possibly double the space for them next year so i can keep freezing them, get some canned and still share them out.