Garden journal - two columns Failures and Successes   we learn equally from both     Brevities #OTD NATIONAL CORN ON THE COB DAY – June 11 Corn is called maize by most countries, this comes from the Spanish word ‘maiz’. Corn is a cereal crop that is part of the grass family. An ear or cob of corn is actually part of the flower and an individual kernel is a seed. On average an ear of corn has 800 kernels in 16 rows. Corn will always have an even number of rows on each cob. A bushel is a unit of measure for volumes of dry commodities such as shelled corn kernels. 1 Bushel of corn is equal to 8 gallons. With the exception of Antarctica, corn is produced on every continent in the world. There are over 3,500 different uses for corn products. As well as being eaten by the cob, corn is also processed and used as a major component in many food items like cereals, peanut butter, potato chips, soups, marshmallows, ice cream, baby food, cooking oil, margarine, mayonnaise, salad dressing, and chewing gum. Juices and soft drinks like Coca-Cola and Pepsi contain corn sweeteners. A bushel of corn can sweeten 400 cans of soft drink. Corn and its by products are also found in many non-food items such as fireworks, rust preventatives, glue, paint, dyes, laundry detergent, soap, aspirin, antibiotics, paint, shoe polish, ink, cosmetics, the manufacturing of photographic film, and in the production of plastics. Corn is also used as feeding fodder for livestock and poultry and found in domestic pet food. As of 2012, the United States produces 40% of the worlds total harvest making it the biggest maize producer in the world (273,832,130 tonnes produced in 2012). An area termed the "Corn Belt" in the US where growing conditions are ideal includes the states of Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska, Minnesota, Indiana, Ohio, Wisconsin, South Dakota, Michigan, Missouri, Kansas and Kentucky. In the days of the early settlers to North America corn was so valuable that it was used as money and traded for other products such as meat and furs. Corn is now a completely domesticated plant so you're unlikely to find it growing in the wild. Corn can be produced in various colors including blackish, bluish-gray, purple, green, red, white and the most common yellow.         #OTD John Constable, RA(/ˈkʌnstəbəl, ˈkɒn-/;[1]11 June 1776 – 31 March 1837) was an English landscape painter in the naturalistic tradition. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for his landscape paintingsof Dedham Vale, the area surrounding his home – now known as "Constable Country" – which he invested with an intensity of affection. "I should paint my own places best", he wrote to his friend John Fisher in 1821, "painting is but another word for feeling".[2 I see the elder is coming into flower. Reminds me of John Constable's oil sketch at Hampstead. c.1821-2  Private  collection.      Study of the Trunk of an Elm Tree   - by John Constable (RA), c1821       Golding Constable's Kitchen Garden, 1815    Golding Constable's Flower Garden, 1815    He considered spring and midsummer as the stirring times for the landscape painter, and not autumn. In his opinion an old tree, half decayed and almost leafless, presented no fitter subject to the painter than an emaciated old man.. .Constable was the first, I believe, in this country who ceased to paint grass yellow ocher, although it appears to me that we are now [1850-60's] in the other extreme. For by the non-employment of yellow, green pictures show a want of sunlight, and allowance is not made for the yellow of the frame, especially at the edge of the picture; still Constable is entitled to great praise for having brought the art back to a truer standard. Green is the colour for trees, and the midsummer shoot gives the green in its greatest variety. pp. 80-81 Nature is the fountain's head, the source from whence all originality must spring. Landscape is my mistress - 'tis to her I look for fame. I never saw an ugly thing in my life: for let the for