Corn
Maíz · Maïs
🧩 Role in the garden
- Family
- Poaceae
- Height
- tall (> 100 cm)
- Shape
- upright
- Roots
- shallow
- Sun
- full sun
- Season
- warm season
- Grows in
- ☀ summer beds (warm season)
- Feeds
- heavy feeder
Jobs in the bed
- Living supportA sturdy stem a climber can use. Put it on the north side so it does not shade the rest.
Rotation
Do not return Poaceae to the same spot for 3–4 years. Same family:
✓ Good neighbours
- ✓ Bean (bush/pole)
- ✓ Pea
- ✓ Cucumber
- ✓ Squash / zucchini
- ✓ Potato
- ✓ Beetroot
- ✓ Spinach
- ✓ Broad bean / fava
- ✓ Melon
- Pumpkin
☀❄ Grows in a different season: not at the same time in the same bed.
✗ Keep apart
- ✗ Tomatoonce its silks dry, earworm moths (= tomato fruitworm) move on to nearby tomatoes, peppers & eggplants
⚠ Use caution
- ⚠ Pepperonce its silks dry, earworm moths (= tomato fruitworm) move on to nearby tomatoes, peppers & eggplants
- ⚠ Eggplant / aubergineonce its silks dry, earworm moths (= tomato fruitworm) move on to nearby tomatoes, peppers & eggplants
- ⚠ Sorghumsorghum, a grass relative, is another preferred earworm host
✿ Helpful flowers & herbs
- ✿ SunflowerLiving support for climbers; attracts pollinators & seed-eating birds Its residues are allelopathic (a legume sown after sunflower yielded less): clear the stalks before resowing; tall and thirsty, it competes with low neighbours
- ✿ DillAttracts ladybugs, parasitic wasps & hoverflies (aphid predators) A minor host of the carrot fly: keep it away from carrots