Cornstalks R Us

September Writing Challenge - Prompt #15:

Thrifty

Sneaky me. Sometimes I add a prompt to my September writing challenge with an ulterior motive. When I made this year’s list, I chose the word, “thrifty” anticipating that I could utilize the prompt to take a trip to the thrift store and buy something fun. Maybe I’d find something cool to refinish. Or maybe I’d find something amazing that didn’t need work! Plates for my plate rack! A new dress! Or maybe a book or two!

But ya know what? I don’t feel like going to the thrift store! 

So that’s a bummer. I set myself up for a thrifting adventure, and now I don’t even wanna do it. Maybe by the end of the month, I’ll get the thrift store bug and need a do-over for this prompt. But right now… I just really don’t have the desire. Mostly because I’m trying to save money after a summer of frivolous spending. I got a bit out on control there for a while. 

Do I spend money as a healing mechanism from dealing with parenting stress? Yes. Yes, I do. 

Anyway, even though I'm avoiding the thrift store, I've still been thrifty lately. Not in all aspects of life but in many. To be thrifty, after all, is to "use money and other resources carefully and not wastefully." I'm pretty good at that... when I want to be. 

As you know, Scotty and I tried growing corn for the first time this year. Things started off beautifully!

Looking at this, you may be thinking we planted our corn way too close, but we followed the recommendations of the square foot gardening method, which is to plant the seeds 4" apart - in other words, 9 per square foot. 

The corn sprouted quickly. We planted it in phases so it would be ripe at different times. The stalks developed silks and tassels. I made sure to assist them in pollinating and fancied myself a corn mating extraordinaire.

Everything was going great until one day, I went outside and was devastated to find this... 

It looked like a tornado had gone through our corn patch!

We tried out best to upright the stalks, but they were just too weak. In the end, this is all we ended up getting...

Plus about four more ears that we harvested one at a time and just cut the kernels off and added them to some sautéed zucchini with peppers and onions. It was a pathetic, little harvest, but gosh darnnit! We grew some corn! And despite how small the ears were, they tasted so delicious!

Next year we are going to try planting our seeds a little deeper, and we will try a few square feet with more spacing. Our stalks were just really thin, so we need to figure out how to get them thicker and stronger. 

I didn't want our sad, humble corn patch to go to waste, so I pulled out a bunch of the stalks to use for fall decor. They are messy, weak, little stalks and hardly anything you'd rave about on Pinterest, but you know what? I grew them! And I'm proud of them! And heck! It's thrifty!

I used to decorate with corn stalks every year, but it's been a really long time since I last used some. I used to get them from my grandpa’s garden, but he fell into poor health and has since passed away.

If you want to use some yourself but don't have something to tie them to, here's my little tip. I hammer something into the ground - I've used dowels, PVC pipe, and even old broom and shovel handles - and tie the stalk to it. 

This year I used these metal thingamajiggies from a storage shelf:

Whatever I can find in my garage!

Thrifty, eh?

The part that's not so thrifty is the ribbon that I bought from Hobby Lobby and insisted on layering. 

But I was also able to use that ribbon to spruce up an old wreath to hang on my front door and to wrap around some gifts.

Justified.

The cornstalks are a lovely complement to our dead lawn, and sometimes chunks of the cornstalks blow away and get stuck in the fence between our yard and the neighbor's, but oh well! I nurtured them from seed! Just let me have my cornstalks, mmkay. They're thrifty!

Sneaking in this sunflower photo...

because I grew it, and I'm proud of it!

Plus it’s relevant because there are

cornstalks behind it.

Now that we've attempted to grow corn and had some trial and error, I'm excited to try again. Hopefully we'll have more success next year. I'm kind of hoping for something like this:

Okay, not really. Candy corn? Ew. But now I want to go to Disneyland where this photo was taken, and that's not a very thrifty choice for our current circumstances.