A little of this and a little of that — our corn is starting to tassel and to make baby ears. Our corn is NOT sweet corn. We have corn that is used for corn meal and to make into feed for animals.
Not sweet corn.
BUT the sweet corn harvest has started in our area….you should be seeing western Colorado sweet corn arriving in your grocery any day now. This area’s sweet corn is raised for two companies, Tuxedo/Olathe Sweet and the other company, Mountain Fresh.
The sweet corn farmers around here are having trouble with people stealing the sweet corn — this whole story is really sad.
What happens is in the dead of night the thieves drive into the sweet corn field, drive to the middle of the field then take the pick-up and start driving through the middle of the corn…they strip the rows they knock down with the truck (someone must be in front of the truck picking — then the truck drives forward and knocks the rows down) while there must be people on either side of the truck because they strip the two rows on either side of the truck…they go through the whole field this way, evidence shows that they have a small fleet of trucks so as one if full the other one gets full until they get to the end of the field.
Then they drive off to who knows where, once they leave the field there isn’t a way to prove that that sweet corn in the back of their truck is stolen. The perfect crime.
This doesn’t seem like much, since the cost to you is in pennies or nickles or dimes or, possibly, quarters. But that is money to the farmer, for every ear of sweet corn a farmer sells he makes anywhere from $.02 -(at the most) $.05 an ear. Truck loads of luscious sweet corn leaving is either the break even point for the farmer or the profit, most times it’s the break even point.
Gradually, as the sweet corn harvest went on last year the farmer’s grew desperate and hired night guards to protect their fields and their crops.
This also happened with the onion crops last year.
So this year farmers are starting out with night watchmen to protect their hard earned investment. This whole thing is sad.
There is a fire in Utah somewhere. Sometimes we see the smoke.
I’m off to get some of my yard work done now that the pinto bean field is cleaned of corn.
Have a good one!
Linda
Life on a Colorado Farm 
So sad about the theft of the sweet corn. What is this country coming to? I don’t blame the farmers for hiring people to watch their fields at nights… BUT–they shouldn’t have to… We love the Colorado Sweet Corn–and wait for it at our Kroger’s every summer. It’s so much better than some of the other corn we get around here…
Hope you have a good day.
Hugs,
Betsy
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Sheesh! What a bunch of jerks! I wonder if game cameras set in hidden areas might catch enough to be able to ID vehicles entering the fields.
I am finally all baled and can get back to house/yard work. Yard first in the cool. Then house.
Stay cool.
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Love sweet corn. So do the raccoons! HA! The corn around here is grown for the feedlots. Ya know when its ready, when you see the stalks all over the road from the raccoons! lol
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Terrible. I had no idea this was going on.
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very sad! someone selling off others’ hard work and life.
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That is terrible! Also terrible that the farmer gets so little for the corn. I don’t know what it costs there but the cheapest sweet corn I’ve seen is .50 an ear and it wasn’t even very good.
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That is just maddening!! To steal from someone else’s hard work and expense…grrrr! It’s so sad that we farmers have to worry about people stealing our property or produce. Our problem here is stealing irrigation pumps or copper wiring from the pivot sprinklers.
Your corn looks great and hurray for getting the volunteer corn out of the pintos. I’ve received 4.95 inches of rain so soon it will be all hands on deck to take care of overgrown weeds and grass. We’re happy in this neck of the woods, for sure.
Darn….we don’t have Kroger’s grocery stores here, but I will keep an eye out for some good sweet corn and hope it is from up there.
Blessings!
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Well, that’s interesting. Both sides of our narrow little valley have row crops for a mile along the highway that goes through here. There are no fences between the crops and the highway. Over the years there have been thefts, but nothing that involves as much labor as the thieves picking the crop themselves. They’ve stolen bins of watermelons, for example. It’s obvious your local thieves know more about crops than most people in California, who can’t tell field corn from sweet corn, nor do they know when a crop is ripe. Sounds like an inside job, hope they’re soon caught.
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I can’t believe people would steal corn, on such a huge scale. Yeah… I’ve often wondered if people ever stop, run in a field and grab a few ears… but truckloads! Wow! Despicable!
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Sad about the theft of corn. By the time they hire security, that takes their profit too.
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I don’t know of anyone who works harder for so little than farmers. That some would stoop this low is outrageous. I sure hope they get caught.
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The number of people who think they deserve something for nothing is so depressing now days.
I hope they are caught and punished.
Or at the very least, made to work it off for nothing.
Hope you are all well!
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That’s really sad. I suppose there’s always someone looking for an opportunity at someone else’s expense. My dad was a gardener, certainly not on the same scale as you mentioned, but various times he would come in and say he’d been keeping an eye on a certain tomato or other vegetable, and it would come up missing.
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Theft like that is happening lots of places the last few years…some of the vineyards have had similar problems, and I heard that last year, an almond grower in CA lost almost an entire crop! I’m not a violent person by nature, but they should be shot…
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UNBELIEVABLE!!! This makes me so mad.
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That is simply sickening. I do not understand how people can behave in such a manner. Ralph had trouble with some really bad trespassers while we were gone. Some older teens shot a gun over his head while he was working on the baler and got in with our cows and terrified them into running. He threw them off and their father came right to the farm and confronted and threatened him. Had I been home police would have been called. So upsetting!
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What bums. We don’t get real good corn here til mid August when the local sweet corn is harvested:)
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I have often wondered where the pickup trucks of corn and onions come from and questioned buying from them. Now i know my gut instinct was right, those truckloads were stolen. What a shame to steal like that and I am sure they damage as much as they take.
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