Field of Dreams is my favorite movie (reminder: the field in question is a corn field). I spent my early teenage years in Utah picking corn for a quarter a dozen at a local farm (way better pay than the 4o cents a bucket we got paid for prickly zucchini). Corn on the cob is my favorite summer food. Why am I telling you all this? Basically, just to make it clear that I know and love corn.  But even with my serious corn-loving history, I’ve never known corn in quite the way I’m getting to know it this year.

And when I say “know,” I kind of mean it in the biblical sense. The thing is, in a vast Field of Dreams field of corn, wind and insects do all the pollinating, but if you’re growing corn on your patio, like I am, there’s just not enough corn pollen floating around for the wind and the birds and the bees to work their magic. You have to “aid in the pollination.” Basically, what I’m saying, is you have to get in there and rub some male corn tassels against some female corn silks. Without you, the corn isn’t making any babies (or, to be more precise, kernels).

So that’s one important thing to know about urban corn gardening. But there are a few other things you should probably know before you grow. Click on through for more details on that pollination situation, plus all the other important corn-growing how-to’s.

First, let’s start with planting. Corn doesn’t like cold, so wait till spring has fully sprung. You can even wait until mid-summer, like I did, and you’ll have a crop before the season is through.  And then there’s this: Corn gets big! (You couldn’t hide an entire team of White Sox ghosts in a field of it otherwise). So while you don’t need to be all crazy and precise with a ruler or anything, you should try to plant corn seeds at least eight inches apart. Some plants, like lettuce, have teeny tiny seeds, so spacing the seeds is hard to manage and thinning the seedlings later is the better option. But corn seeds are big, and you should be able to space them without too much trouble. Still, if you find they’re too close once they sprout, no problem. Just take a pair of scissors and cut some of the too-near neighbors off at the soil level.

As you can see from the photo below of my corn sprouts six weeks ago, I planted too close, but I’ve scissored since then, and all is well. (For the sake of honest reporting, I have to admit that my stalks are still a little closer than eight inches, but no biggie).

Even though corn gets big, it’s actually a great container vegetable because it has a shallow root system. But a shallow root system also means the potential to get parched quickly. So keep your corn container well watered. I water mine every other day, and it’s looking great so far.

Other than that, corn is pretty low maintenance. Except that whole assistance in sexual reproduction thing. Let’s get back to that, this time with visual aids.

This is a corn tassel, aka the male parts:

(photo by Joe Kish)

This is corn silk, aka the female parts:

(photo by Thomas Kriese)

Corn is what is known in the biz as a monoecious plant. That means both male and female reproductive parts exist on one plant, so you’re going to find both tassels and silks on each corn stalk. When the time comes for rubbing the tassels on the silks (and the time has come when the tassels and the silks have matured to the point that they look like the ones in the pictures above) you could pollinate each plant with its own pollen. But you might as well avoid inbreeding and reach down the row. Just a little friction and you’re done. (I will do us all a favor and not insert any jokes about “just a little friction” here).

Once you’ve tasseled those silks, in a little less than three weeks you should have corn ready for plucking. (Though now that I’ve invented the phrase “tasseled those silks,” I can’t really resist it. Feel free to make all the jokes you want about what tassels your silks in the comments).