It’s long since time to get sweet corn in the ground.  In lieu of using a tiller, I thought the next best thing would be to add a couple bags of GardenPro Topsoil. Normally topsoil is rather heavy stuff and a good analogue of honest-to-goodness “dirt”, however this stuff is surprisingly loose. I did soak my corn seed for 30 minutes before planting. This year sees a return of the variety Ambrosia which has the legendary flavor of the mythical Silver Queen, but doesn’t start turning its sugars to starch in earnest until after two days in the fridge. It was incredibly good last year and I can’t complain about production.

The first batch of tomatoes (mostly store-bought) are now approximately 2 feet tall and putting on serious flowers.

I need to hurry up and add the rest of the tomato cages and apply a good layer of mulch to help preserve moisture and reduce fungal splashback from heavy rain.

It was also long since time to get my second batch of tomatoes in the ground. Several days of rain had delayed this process but today it was hot and dry. It will be interesting to see if the new plants (all started from seed) catch up or make my wait until September.

The white film on the plants is Surround (powdered kaolin clay) which, when mixed with water, produces an excellent sunblock for the leaves. Reducing the sun intake helps reduce plant stress. Alternately I could have installed sheets to shade the plants.