Can't wait for corn

Its one of my favourite summer crops and also one of the first home grown veggies I ever tried, back when I made my first stumbling attempts at growing my own.  At the time I was living in the townships of South Africa and many families had a little patch of corn, or mealies as we called them.  So I decided to give it a go and they were spectacular.  The variety that is common there has a larger and lighter kernel and I think, more flavour.  However, last year I loved the corn we grew and have put a larger plot in this year.

And square is of course the way to go, being a wind pollinated plant.  I put in two varieties and can't wait to test the difference.  However, it seems the rats can't wait either, and so I've lost a few ears already, which is pretty frustrating.  Apparently there is a bit of a plague in the valley, so they were telling me at the produce store yesterday.  They've caught 50 in the last two weeks.  Strangely, it makes me feel a bit better, being in good company with my torment.

As I mentioned a few posts ago, I'm planting a few other things in amongst the corn to act as a ground cover.  Here is one.

There are a good half dozen little squashes on there now, which is very exciting.  I didn't grow any last year, for no particular reason, so I'm excited to have them again.  I've got three of these plants in amongst the rows.

The fig garden bed is also worth a look in.  Like the corn, its really been growing up a storm since this last pic several months ago.  I just picked our first cherries, we've been harvesting capsicum for a month now, and the sage and basil is going along beautifully.  Here's how it looked in July.

And here it is in November. I'm sure in another six months it will be nice and lush, filling up all the blank spaces.  I'm hoping the artichoke in the back will really come into its own by then.