The winter cover crop of Diakon Radish getting disked in.
Finishing tillage
Seeding the corn with the Hoss wheel hoe seeder
All watered in
This is what it will look like in May
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Just for a second before I saw the last caption, I thought it had already sprung up. 
Things seem to be moving along might quickly, but theyāre not THAT quick, eh?
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A thing of beauty. There is just something about corn picked fresh in the summer, and eaten on a warm summer evening. And, LOVE that tractor, totally in love with that tractor.
Patty S.
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Nice seed bed for your walk behind planter Eric.
Iām considering trying to plant some sweet corn.
I canāt till on my land because our heavy spring rains would wash away our soil, so Iād have to do no-till.
Iām not planning to do it anytime soon, but Iād like to add something more regular than mostly stone fruits, which are too iffy as a stand alone crop here. Sweet corn seems to have a decent demand here, and except for harvest/sales, isnāt too labor intensive.
I love your cover crop.
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That Hoss planter needs a pretty fine seedbed to push thru reliably. Id very much like to no tillā¦but im not aware of any small(ish) no till seeders. If you ever hear of any please alert me.
Sweet corn is very good to us. No one grows it around here and we can pretty much sell all we grow easily. Its a pretty fair amount of work on the small scale like we do it. Almost everything has to be done by hand. We havent figured out yet a efficient way to spray BT for ear worms so after harvest we have to pick thru every ear to check for damage. Thats a real chore right in the middle of the busiest time we have of the market season. Been contemplating building a custom spray push cart that I can roll up and down the rows. Ear worms ruin 1/3 of that crop.
Eric: Around here corn earworms get much worse on later plantings. They ruin 100% of ears. Thatās one reason I plant as early as possible. The other is earlier plantings yield more. Iād think that doubly so in Phoenix.
Corn here comes up much earlier than even Iād expect. Our issue is freezes after it gets some size. Freezes on small plants, the size mine are now, arenāt serious.
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Iām looking for a John Deere 7000. They have them all the time on Craigslist. Just search for John Deere planter.
Mostly they are 4 or 6 row planters, but in the last 6 months Iāve even seen a factory 2 row planter (at least it looked factory). Farmers around here are getting rid of them because they arenāt big enough. I once saw a youtube video of someone pulling a 4 or 6 row no-till planter w/ a tractor very similar to yours.
Some guys are taking old John Deere 7000s and even if they are 6 row planters, cutting them down to 2 or 3 row planters, then reselling them, but they charge a lot to customize them that way. Probably much cheaper to cut them down yourself, and they you get to keep all the extra insecticide, seed boxes, coulters, etc. for spare parts.
Kinze also makes very good no-till planters.
Eric,
Thatās a lot of damage. If I do sweet corn, I will probably plant Bt corn (hesitant to mention this because some people on the forum donāt like gm corn, or anybody who does. Not trying to start a debate here). I just personally donāt want to have to do all the insecticide spraying. I donāt know if you are interested but Seigers sells commercial sweet corn seed (as well as all kinds of other commercial vegetable seed.)
http://www.siegers.com/online-catalog/corn.html
They sell Syngentas Attribute series (resistant to borer and earworm) the Seminis Performance series (same insect resistance as Attribute along w/ glyphosate resistance). They also sell loads of non-gm corn if thatās your preference.
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Olpea that is all invaluable information, thank you. Ill look at the seeders you listed. Dont know how or if any will work, sadly this area that we grow the sweet corn in is both fenced and somewhat small (110ā x 100ā). Being fenced means that there is no way to run a tractor mounted seeder thru the field and out the other side. And small means that turning a tractor with a seeder around inside of the field would eat up alot of valuable growing space. Hence why we use the small push seeder. [quote=āOlpea, post:7, topic:4642ā]
Thatās a lot of damage. If I do sweet corn, I will probably plant Bt corn
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We have always grown our sweet corn without herbicides/pesticides but every year I do it im getting older and less able to do all the manual labor of wheel hoe cultivating that entire field over and over. Once again because of the fencing and small size I cant use a tractor mounted cultivator. Im also getting rather tired of the losses from ear worms. For the first time we sprayed a pre-emergent of Dual Magnum to help with a broad variety of pest weeds we encounter. And next year depending on how our customers react we may go on to using a BT corn also. People who are against such things have never had to feed 1/3 of a hard won crop to the livestock because of insects. I personally could care less, id grow RR BT sweet corn all dayā¦but I dont know if my customers will refuse to pay as much for GMO sweet corn. Nearly every person that walks up wants to know if its GMO (not that 98% of them even know what that term means).
Eric,
As you know my 4 row cyclone air planter wonāt work. I did see this seeder as I was browsing the other day Small Farm Equipment Review Part II ā The Jang Seeder | Local Roots Farm. Something like this might work also http://www.beavervalleysupply.com/sectionb/kascoseed.htm. If I ever get some downtime or more money to buy one I might be able to get something like this which is what iām after http://www.diytrade.com/china/pd/9220908/Vegetable_Seeds_Seeder.html
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We have tried the BT sweet corn for our garden but did not like the taste as much. We have tried several different varieties over the years but always end up going back to the old Silver Queen.
We always try to start planting corn on March 5 and will start on Tuesday or Wednesday because of wet ground. I will try to take pictures of us planting our little garden.
I think there are pretty big regional differences. I have a friend who sells sweet corn. He occasionally gets asked if itās gm, but he says itās pretty rare.
Thanks for the info. Tiger. I donāt know if Iāve ever eaten bt sweet corn (Iāve eaten plenty of RR field corn). I think Iāll try some bt corn this summer before I try planting it.
Iāve grown several garden variety sweet corn types. Kandy corn is our favorite.
Clark,
I donāt know what they are asking for those new small planters, but you might consider something used on Craigslist. I saw a JD 7000 two row planter for around $1700 a while back. JD would be much easier to get parts for. They sold millions of those things over the years.
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Our island produces the best sweet corn during the summer into the fall. I have never tasted anything so good. When going to shop at a certain road side stand about a half hour from my home, there is a large cart on the side of the road that says āCorn du Jourā. And yes, everyday they have a different variety. They have usually all white, or white and yellow mixes. They have no names, only numbers. I bought seed at Agway but the raccoons got the sweetcorn, not me! This year its popcorn!
Love that push planter. Looks like a very efficient and effective device.
Do you also cultivate with it?
When I was growing up dad would give me a pump soap dispenser filled with mineral oil and I would walk down every row and put one squirt on each ear silk to keep the worms out.
Ill tell ya @blueberrythrill that Hoss wheel hoe is the most handy darn thing a small acreage grower could have. We used it to cultivate, hill, plow, furrow, and seed. Wheel hoes used to be a must have for backyard gardens at one time and they sure are a labor saver.
The next step up from the wheel hoe is our antique Simplicity walking tractor. I use our walking tractor for all sorts of tasks that are too much for the the wheel hoe.
Yeah ive been told that works. Problem is that there will be about 5000 ears of corn up there to try to cover. 
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Oh myā¦this thing is the cats meow!! Id love to use one. Problem is that id have to take down all my fencing to allow me to pull thru.
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Yes, some of those corn seeders are really cool. They are fairly simple, but will cut through trash, open the furrow drop the seed (perfectly spaced and at the perfect depth every time) and close the furrow. I donāt think anybody could plant with that kind of precision by hand.
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Got half of the sweet corn planted in our garden. We will plant the other half when we finish planting the farm.
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Frick!! Thats cheating!! 