When to Plant Corn in Southern California

Impress dinner guests with corn grown in your own garden.

Hollywood and corn fields have little in common except that both are found in Southern California. You can create a stronger link by joining with local celebrity gardeners like chef and author Alice Waters to grow your own crop of sweet corn.

Significance

Whether corn is fully grown with maturing kernels or is recently emerged from the soil, it is a warm-season crop that cannot tolerate frost. To ensure you do not waste the time spent tending to your crop, plant to avoid both spring and fall frost dates.

Considerations

Gardeners often use a rule of thumb for planting corn: plant no sooner than two weeks before the final expected frost of the spring. Seeds require approximately 11 days underground for germination and growth before emerging, allowing most seeds to avoid frost exposure while beginning the growth process. Late corn crops must be planted an average of 110 days before the first expected frost of fall to mature before autumn frost occurs.

Expert Insight

Farm advisors with the University of California Cooperative Extension service, recommend planting sweet corn between the months of March and July for spring, mid and fall season crops. They warn that exact planting dates vary among small sections of the state and advise planting only after soil temperatures reach a minimum of 55 degrees Fahrenheit, which can occur as early as January in southern desert valleys.

References

• Farmers' Almanac: Gardening by the Moon Calendar from the Farmers' Almanac
• National Gardening Association: Corn Growing-Getting Started
• University of California IPM Online: Time to Plant
• University of California Cooperative Extension: Sweet Corn Production in California; Richard Smith, et al.

Resources

• University of Illinois Extension: Corn