Planting Native Three Sisters Crops in Desert Areas: Corn

I got the seeds from Native Seeds Search, which has a retail location at 526 N. 4th Avenue in Tucson AZ 85705. My seeds were Hopi Blue Flour Corn, Zea mays, (Their order number ZF29.) I planted the first hill on April 1 and the second hill on April 12. There didn't seem to be any advantage to planting earlier. The twelfth was consistent with the plains Indians tradition of planting with the moon and appears to have done as well as the corn planted on the 1st. The first corn cobs were ripe and ready to be picked in the middle of July.

I've talked with a local organic gardener and will be talking about how much water he puts on his garden - and other proven xeric tips in a later column. This years's monsoon started in June as my Almanack said it would. So far we've had a drier July, also according to prediction. It has been COOL some days this summer and the nightly thunderstorms and electrical storms frequently turn Tucumcari Mountain - our mesa - a beautiful orange.

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