Corn conundrums

[Lottie-Newby]

Hi,

I've recently started an allotment and in my haste planted a sweetcorn plant without seperating the plants. I now have four plants very very close together. Should I attempt to dig them up to spread them out into a block? I've heard they are very sensitive to this. This was 4 weeks ago...

Any advice on how best to do this would be really appreciated, I'm sure they're not going to like being that close to each other so I may not have anything to lose.

Thanks for reading

[rustylady]

When did you plant them? If it was very recently I would dig them up and carefully separate them.

[Lottie-Newby]

Sorry I should have said, it was about 4 weeks ago....

[rustylady]

Where did you get them from? Have they grown much? I think I would still try to separate them - as you said, they won't do much planted that close together.

By the way, welcome to the Vine. If you could add your location (nearest town) to your profile it will show on your posts and helps when giving advice.

[Lottie-Newby]

Thanks. I got them from a garden centre near me. I think I will try digging them out and seperating this week.

Thanks for your help

[Dusty Rhodes]

Do not dig them up! After they are a couple inches tall, you ideally should leave them alone. The tap root is sensitive to transplanting by 4 weeks of age. If you were to uproot them, they would go into a no growth period for about a month. You can get by with close planting with only four plants...it would be like planting using the hill method for corn.