Early May

While I was gone on vacation for two weeks, the corn and sunflowers continued to grow at a very fast rate. Here is a progress photo taken on April 22nd.

Five days later, John posed with the corn to show how tall it was getting. You can tell that it grew a couple more inches in that short time.

By May 6th the corn is about six feet tall and maturing nicely.

Here is a close-up of the tassels with the male flowers which produce the pollen, which is consequently carried by the wind to the corn silk.

Corn silk.

This photo shows the progress of all three corn circles as of two days ago.

The sunflowers are also doing extremely well and already taller than they were last year.

Here is a close-up of one of the sunflowers, getting ready to bloom.

And this morning, we were greeted by our very first sunflower!

Easter 2012

Earlier this year, at the end of February, John was busy designing a new garden plan. Because the corn and sunflowers did so well last year, he decided he would focus on just those two 'crops' this spring. Last year's corn circle proved to be a success, so this year he refined the design.

Then he set about working on an irrigation system.

He placed soaker hoses in a circular pattern.

Then he used elbow type joints to connect the hoses.

Unfortunately, the drip line system was not as effective as he'd hoped and leaks developed at the connector joints.

This was particularly true when he stepped the hoses up and over the short block wall to reach the raised planting bed.

He scrapped the drip lines and decided to use garden hoses with a four-way connector made specifically for this purpose.

This proved to be a success and soon the corn he'd planted began to sprout. This photo taken yesterday shows the progress.

And here you see the same corn circle with the sunflower plants growing in the planter next to the block wall.

Three weeks after planting the first corn circle, John planted a second one in order to stagger the growing process. Ultimately, there will be a total of three corn circles in the yard.

The following photos show the single soaker hose in the planter bed with sunflower plants growing on either side of it.

This year there will be more red sunflowers, as well as a section of mixed red and yellow.