When I returned from Chicago yesterday afternoon, Judy let me know that a morning thunderstorm had taken the fabric off the hoop tunnel and had knocked down the corn. Fixing the tunnel was easy. The corn took a little more work.
Corn does very well in my raised beds, but it is easily blown over by strong winds. The soil is soft and the corn is sitting up high and exposed to gusts. I’ve read corn will right itself after being blown over, but I don’t find that to be true at all. In the past I tried to straighten up the stalks and mound dirt around the roots, but that was not a good solution.
As I began using more and more fence T-posts for trellising and fencing, I started making corn corrals, which have proved to be totally effective. I almost never install them until I have to, as with a minor catastrophe like this, but after I fence up the corn it eventually stands up tall and seems to set even stronger root.
I use 6 posts per bed. I use one strand of jute which I run around the perimeter at about 24″ high. I tie off the jute at every post so their is some ridgidity to the bracing strands. I tie off cross strands between every other row and I straighten the corn as I string the cross strands. The hard work is pounding the T-posts, but it only takes an hour and a half to fix both beds, and I will not have to worry about the wind any more.