The net really is the only way to get any fruit from peaches, plums, nectarines, and apricots around here.

And yes, that's a gopher snake which most people call a bull snake because they look like and mimic rattle snakes.  Their hissing sounds a lot like a rattle snake's rattle, although not as loud.  

He was laying on the drip line because that just happens to be where I sat him for the picture.  Most likely I get so many snakes in my garden because it is a good place for mice.  

I had to do a little maintenance on some tomatoes today so I thought I would snap a pic to show how I am growing my indeterminate tomatoes this year.  I keep them pruned to a single or double stem.  The support is made from 1/2" EMT and is held together with elbows and Teks self tapping screws.  The tomatoes are held to the bailing twine with tomato clips.

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Here is a little harvest from today.  This might be the last of the bush beans for awhile.

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OK, now that I have used the ARFCOM image hosting feature maybe I can explain it better.

First, you have to make sure the image is less than 3MB, but we already went over resizing so we should be good there.

Next, you can only upload 5 images per post.

To upload an image, click the "select file" button below the text window.  Find the picture you want to upload, click on it, and then click OK.  After that, the text above the "select file" button will list the image name and size at the bottom.  You need to click the "upload" button next to the "select file" button to actually upload the image.  Make sure your cursor is located in the text box where you want the image to appear.

Click the "preview" button below the text box to make sure the post appears the way you want it to once it is submitted.

Your garden looks great mine is pathetic so it will be no loss if I can't upload pictures. I'm curious though what is the purpose of raised beds?

I used to grow single stem tomatoes up Mel's trellis design but it's not a good structure for draping bird netting over so I like this way better.

I only planted 4 toms in the bed pictured but once I get some more growing I think I am going to try 8 and 12 plants per bed.  Basically 1 per square foot along the inside perimeter of the bed with the center empty.  I think it would be too difficult to manage plants in the center once they all get large.

I like raised beds for several reasons.

First, the raised beds define the growing space.  This keeps me from walking on my soil and allows me to concentrate my compost, fertilizer, and water where the plants need it and not in the walkways.

Next, I use a no till method once the bed is constructed.  If I tilled and row gardened, my soil would need tilling every season as it would become too compacted over the course of a season.  I don't own a tiller and don't want the added labor so raised beds work well for me.  They are a lot of work the way I make them but once it's done, it's done.

Another benefit of the raised beds is that because my soil line is below the lip, the raised bed helps to contain my mulch and prevents the erosion of my good soil during heavy monsoon rains.

Finally, weeding is super easy with raised beds.  Since my soil inside the bed is a compost rich loam and since I don't walk on it, it doesn't really compact.  I can pull weeds by simply pinching them between my thumb and fore finger.  Pulling weeds out of my native soil, even small ones, is like trying to pull out a tree.

In a few days I will post some pictures showing how I build the beds.

Those are some of the same reasons I tried to recess my beds. They help retain the store bought soil I added and they contain the water until it has a chance to soak in instead of running off.

We will be getting into single digit humidity around here before long. I have been putting the grass clippings from the lawn around the plants to help keep the moisture in the soil and try to get some organic matter worked into it over time.

Impressive.  You have a nice gardening setup.  Wondering how you manage the soil in your raised beds.  I imagine what you started with was not great.

Our resident gopher snake was largely responsible for getting rid of the ground squirrels in the yard. It has earned its keep and the dogs know to stay well away.

The soil in my oldest beds (the ones that are 4'x4') was originally mixed as sort of a modified Mel's mix.  I bought bulk compost and added in peat and vermiculite.  Each of those beds is around 50-70% compost.  Peat moss and vermiculite are just too expensive for me to use a third of each filling up a bed.

I have since refined the mix I use.  The newer, longer beds are about a 50-50 mix of bulk compost I get from the local land reclamation facility and native soil.

All the beds have been dug down to a depth of about 15"-18" below the normal soil level.  I dig out about one shovel head's depth and then use an all steel garden fork to loosen another shovel head's depth of soil.  Essentially this creates a double dug raised bed.

On the 4'x4' beds, you might notice that the soil line in the pathways comes up about to the top of the 2x6's used to frame in the beds.  I did this to create sunken beds that I believed wouldn't dry out as fast.  I think the sunken beds are a good approach for desert gardening but I didn't follow it with newer beds because I would like to fill the walkways in with woodchips whenever I can source enough of them for free.  The woodchips will help retain moisture in the pathways as well as build soil and suppress weeds.

I amend the soil in the beds whenever I replant.  First, I remove any leftover mulch and old crop residue.  Then I use a garden fork to areate the soil.  I dont lift or turn the soil, I just sink the fork in and rock it back and forth a little to loosen it.  Basically I am broad forking it but I don't have a broad fork so I use a regular garden fork.  Next, I sprinkle in a mix of blood meal, bone meal, kelp meal, and crab shell meal.  If I am replanting with a heavy feeder and I happen to have some pelleted fertilizer, I will add a little triple 10 or triple 16 but I make sure I don't over do it.  I'm more likely to use organic meal fertilizers and synthetic fertilizers on the newer beds.  Once I run out of what I have on hand I would like my beds to be in a condition where I don't need to keep buying more of either.  

Anyhow, after I add the fertilizer, I cover it up with fresh, sifted compost, preferably from my own pile as the homemade stuff seems to be better than what I can buy.  If the soil surface has sunk down a lot, I will mix the compost with some sifted native soil before adding it in to help top the bed off.  If I have it on hand, I will also sometimes mix in cow manure with the compost before topping the bed up, especially for heavy feeding crops with edible parts not in direct contact with the soil and/or that don't get eaten raw.  For example, I don't use un-composted manure on carrots or lettuce but I will use it to grow tomatoes and potatoes.  I will also use it on something like broccoli or cauliflower and then follow that up with something like carrots since I figure by the time the carrots get eaten, any harmful bacteria in the manure would have been rendered moot.

Back on track, after I top the bed up, I plant and mulch or mulch, then plant.  When I mulch depends on what I am planting.  Sometimes it is easier to mulch first, sometimes after.  I don't mulch crops like carrots.  For mulch, I like to use alfalfa hay but I will also use straw.  I'm going to try wood chips on some of my longer term crops to see how that works.  I have a new bed of asparagus I might try it out on.  I don't use woodchips on the shorter season stuff because I prefer having most of the mulch decompose between crops.  Some crops, like my corn which hasn't been mulched yet this season, will get a fresh layer of cow manure spread on the surface and then I will mulch it with alfalfa or straw.

C'mon folks, lets get some pictures up.

Here is what the oldest part of my garden looked like in the spring of 2011, when I took it over.  It didn't look like that for very long after I started working it.

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This picture is from last spring so the plantings aren't current but it will give you an idea of how the layout has changed.  Not visible is a 2'x4' bed on the left side of the gate and my compost pile on the right side.

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After putting it off for too long, I could no longer resist the urge to expand so last year I turned this:

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Into this:

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When making my beds, I used to dig them out all the way to a depth of 15"-18", as seen below.  These days, I don't dig out the the bottom 6"-8".  Rather, I use a super heavy duty garden fork to loosen the soil.

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I don't mix the compost and native soil before I refill the beds.  Instead, I add each back in layers about an inch or two thick until it's full.  I'll stir the top 6" or so with a shovel before I plant for the first time but otherwise I figure the organisms and the natural cycle of planting and harvesting will arrange everything the way it should be.

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Show us how you compost.

When I first started composting, I was using one of the black plastic static compost bins that can be found at garden centers.  I never had much success with it.  For starters, it is too small in my opinion.  Based on my experience, a compost pile, especially a static one, should be at least a cubic yard in size.  The real reason I failed with that bin though is because I really didn't know what I was doing.  I was trying to make compost out of nothing but weekly additions of kitchen scraps which don't have a very good balance of carbon to nitrogen.  As if kitchen scraps aren't wet enough, I was also drowning the material with multiple waterings each week.

After failing with that experiment for a little bit, I decided to get into composting with worms.  Vermicomposting is a much better option if your primary input will be kitchen scraps and you don't want to mess with balancing browns and greens.  I kept my worms going in various bins for about 12 years and harvested a lot of really high quality compost from them.  Then, about 3 years ago, a swarm of bees decided to move in and setup shop in the salvaged missile shipping container I was using as my worm bin and thus ended my worm keeping.  They aren't the most sociable livestock but I still kind of miss having worms so I will probably get back into vermicomposting at some point.

These days, I make my compost in a Geobin.  It maxes out at about 4 feet in diameter and about 3 feet tall so it's a good size to get a hot, active pile going.  I like the Geobin, but I want to make even more compost every year so one of the projects on my to do list is a three bin composter made from scrap plywood and T-posts.  

Another thing I like about the Geobin is that the sides of the pile don't seem to dry out as much as they would if I just used chicken wire.  I get finished compost from the center of the pile to within about 2"-3" of the edge.  If I turned the pile, everything in it would compost but I will go into that later.  You might be thinking, "Why contain the pile at all?" and that's a good question.  If I lived in a wetter environment, I would just pile the material up and let it do it's thing.  But you get more of a cone shape doing that and cones shed water.  In the desert, things that shed water dry out.  With a cylindrical or cubic shape, water can penetrate to the center of the pile where it is needed.  

Speaking of water, I do a couple things to keep my compost moist while it is cooking.  First, I add my kitchen scraps to it about once a week.  Maybe within a month of harvest I will stop adding kitchen scraps.  I use a five gallon bucket with a Gamma Seal lid to collect my kitchen scraps.  After I empty the scraps on the top of the pile and cover them over with dry straw or garden waste, I rinse the bucket out over the pile so the dirty water can soak into it.  To conserve moisture, I try to keep a thick layer of mulch, usually straw, on the top and cover that with a few layers of shade cloth.  Very occasionally I will give the pile a good soaking with the hose but I'm not even sure that's necessary.  

To build a compost pile, the first thing I do is gather as much material as I can.  Ideally, I like to have enough material to completely fill the bin when I first start the pile.  To do this, I save up garden waste and chopped up tree trimmings in 32 gallon trash cans and make a run out to the desert to get a truck load of cow manure.  I'll even save up a couple buckets of kitchen scraps for a few weeks if I can.  They'll get pretty rank while they are waiting to be added but that don't bother me.  Also, used coffee grounds from Starbucks or other coffee shops is a good, free resource.  Used coffee grounds are a nice, balanced fertilizer and are good to use in moderation as a top dress around plants too.  I construct my compost pile by alternating layers of carbon (straw, tree trimmings, dried weeds and garden waste, unfinished material from a previous pile, etc.) and nitrogen (manures, especially fresh manures, kitchen scraps, fresh garden waste, coffee grounds, etc.).  I try to keep each layer under 4" thick and after adding each one I give it a good soaking with the hose.  I try to make a point of putting larger, woody material at the bottom and middle of the pile to create some voids for oxygen.

There really isn't much that I won't put into my compost piles.  As long as it is some type of organic material and isn't contaminated with something that will hurt my garden, it goes in the compost.  I don't compost human or pet waste, but I intend to in the future.  Most composting instructions will say not to add things like meat, dairy, cooking oils, citrus, or onions but I put all that stuff and more in both my old worm bins and my current hot compost piles.  Deer and javelina hides?  Yep, they go into the compost pile.  Dead critters the dogs leave laying around?  You got it, into the pile.  Jimmy Hoffa?  Well, why do you think they never found him?  I used to put the frames from bass and crappie I filleted out into the pile but recently I started saving those to bury directly into the garden.  I save the bones from my big game to make dog food, but if I didn't, I would put those in the pile too.  Shortly after my hot compost piles are built, the temperature shoots up to about 160 degrees F and stays between 140-160 degrees for a month or two.  That's more than enough heat and time to kill any bad bacteria or weed seeds.  If you are worried about harmful bacteria, just make sure any material containing it is placed towards the center of the pile as that is where it will stay the hottest for the longest period of time.

With the Geobin, I never turn the material.  Once it is built, most of the work is done until it is time to harvest.  The pile will sink down over time so as I mentioned, I will continue to add kitchen scraps and some garden waste to it until about a month before harvest time.  Without turning, the compost is usually ready to harvest in about 5-6 months.  If I turned it, it would be ready faster.  I do most of my planting in the spring and fall and that's also when I amend my beds with compost so a 6 month harvest schedule for compost works well for me.  Since my compost pile is open on the bottom, once it cools down, earthworms will move into it and further decompose the material.  I used to place the Geobin in a fallow garden bed and let the compost happen there so the good stuff would leach down and enrich my garden soil but I stopped doing that since at the time I only had about 200 square feet of growing space and didn't want to sacrifice any of it for 5-6 months.  If you can afford to give up the space though, it is a good idea to build your compost piles on top of the soil you will be gardening in.  I would avoid building a pile too close to trees with invasive roots.

When the pile is ready to harvest, I scrape back the dried mulch on top and shovel the finished material into a sifter I built for my wheel barrow.  As long as most of the stuff has broken down, it is fine to use unsifted compost, but I like to sift mine through a 1/4" screen.  I'm particular like that.  If I am feeling especially motivated, I'll pick out the bones so they can be crushed and added to my garden beds.  Otherwise, I'll throw them in with the unfinished material to be recycled into the next batch of compost.  The 2"-3" of unfinished materially around the edges will also get set aside for the next batch.  If I am not ready to use it yet, I store my compost in a 55 gallon barrel and in 32 gallon plastic trash cans.  The compost will store for several months before it dries out.  Try to keep it out of direct sunlight and covered with something.  Don't cover it with an airtight lid or you will get mold and some funky smells.  I like to use scrap pieces of loose fitting plywood to cover the containers.  If you store it this way for 2-3 months, most of it should stay moist.  The top few inches might dry out but that's okay.  The dried stuff will still have some nutrition, you'll just lose a lot of the micro organisms and probably some of the nitrogen.  The moist compost underneath will still have both.  Don't let your finished compost get rained on.  

My worm bin built from a missile shipping container.

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One thing I liked about that container is that it had a partition in the middle so I could have one side that was active and the other awaiting harvest.

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Here is a shot from the last batch I harvested from the Geobin this past spring.  Note how close to the edge of the bin the finished material is.  

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This is what the above compost looked like after sifting.  I probably ended up with over half a yard of finished, sifted compost.

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Some finished worm castings.  Worm castings tend to be wetter and stickier than regular compost.

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This was my old compost sifting setup.  

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That was pretty tedious so I made a sifter out of 2x4's, 1x2's, and 1/4" hardware cloth that fits over my wheel barrel.  There are channels on the bottom that the sides of the wheel barrow fit into so I can slide it back in forth easily.

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I set aside the unfinished material that was sifted out and add it as a brown layer in the next batch of compost.

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I make compost tea too but I haven't done much of it lately.  I'm not sure how beneficial it really is but I'm convinced it doesn't hurt.

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If it was once living, or came from something once living, it's pretty much fair game for the compost pile.  Many a critter has helped enrich my garden.

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Who says you can't put meat and bones in the compost pile?

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I wrap the bones in a towel and smash them with a sledge hammer.  That idea came from The Sopranos.

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Not quite ready.

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That's better.  The crushed bones get added to the garden beds.  There are larger chunks like you can see in the picture but I also get a lot of powdered bone that is much closer in consistency to bone meal, it just sinks to the bottom so it wasn't visible for the pic.

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Those damn desert bunnies will eat and destroy every cactus you have and give zero shits about any thorns while doing it. Month of May we typically get zero rain so the bunnies will eat anything and everything green for water. I absolutely had them little shits! Jack rabbits are pretty elusive around my parts and I've never had an issue with them.

I did something along those lines a few years back.  Of course, that thread is now in the archives.  Here is the link:  http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_10_19/656206_Black-Gold--Updated-With-Garden-Pictures-4-12-12-.html

Last year I had a full garden and the varmints got almost everything except radishes, some onions, tomatoes and corn. This year I decided to just go with the tomatoes and corn and not go to all that work to feed the rodents and birds. Since I am starving them they are reduced to eating tomato plants. When I went out this morning the only plant that had tomatoes already on it was wilted. When I checked it had been eaten from below by a damned gopher.

Last year I trapped dozens of kangaroo rats, packrats and ground squirrels. I also put out lots of rat poison blocks. This year so far I have only got a couple ground  squirrels and 6 or 7 rats. I think they must have taken the poison to their dens and consumed it during the winter. The gophers though seem to be unstoppable.

Oh and by the way the birds got a lot of my second planting of corn this year and then the horrible winds nocked more of it over. I may have to give up on a garden out here. We'll see.

How did you determine that a gopher ate your tomato plant from below?  One of mine wilted the other day and the three plants next to it are doing fine so I'm a little stumped as to the cause.

Don't give up man.  Where there's a will, there's a way.

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There was a hole underneath it. I guess I could grow my tomatoes in planters.

The damned cottontails got under my garden fence. I had seen some tattered leaves on the corn and then the other morning when I went out to water there where two running around inside the fence. They got out before I could return with the pellet gun.
I banked the fence with brush, rocks and dirt. I usually pull tumble weeds as soon as I find them, now I have decided to let them grow. My plan is to let them mature and then I will use them as a barrier piled along the outside of the fence.

The burrows paid a visit again last night. Odd there were only two, a mother and her young, the little fellows track isn't much larger than a quarter. In the past I have seen as many as 17 in the herd and when they all show up they can make a real mess. They munched a little on the leaves of the elm tree and probed the garden fence but no real damage. They are unpredictable. It may be months before they get in the yard again so closing the driveway gate every night isn't a real option.

I hade planted a second crop of corn a couple weeks after the first. The first planting was just in the native desert dirt. The second planting I added commercial garden soil to the mix and that corn has surpassed the first. I have fertilized with Miracle Grow every two weeks. I think maybe I should do it every week because of how much I have to water, the fertilizer could be leaching down into the soil. What do you think about that?

I have two tomato plants, one was all but destroyed by the gophers but one small stem survived. Now both have got a lot of blossoms and a few small tomatoes but they never seem to ripen.

I had been watering from a two gallon can and it didn't seem that bad. Last week I bought a sprinkler wand and what a difference it is, we are getting all modern out here.

Cotton tails are hell in my area too.  I pretty much have to ring my garden with hardware cloth.  Where it isn't buried several inches below the surface I need to place bricks in front of it to keep the little bastards from trying to go under.  I've actually seen rabbits that got trapped in the garden try to get out when I was in there and they would jump over the 2' high hardware cloth and through the chain link fence to escape.

Consistent watering will make a big difference for your garden.  I used to water my garden by hand and it was almost impossible to keep up during the summer.  Now I use drip on a timer and it has made a big difference.  

Unfortunately, I recently changed my timer settings from 3 times a day at 35 minutes each to twice a day at 30 minutes each and it really hurt my corn since our days have been consistently around 110-115 degrees.  I put it back up and the corn seems to have recovered a little bit but it's in the tassling stage so I probably hurt my yield by stressing it.

You definitely don't want to let those tomatoes dry out too much between waterings.  If they do, that can cause significant blossom end rot which will ruin a lot of the fruit.

If it is really hot, that could be affecting the ripening of your tomatoes.  Then again, some varieties just take longer than others.

I wouldn't increase the fertilizing if I were you.  Some of it will leach away but the NPK value of Miracle Gro is so much higher than what plants actually need that it kind of balances out.

It has been in the 90's for a few weeks. I have been watering twice a day when it has been really hot. Also my trapline (4 victor rat traps ) have produced 20 pack rats, 3 kangaroo rats , 6 ground squirrels and a starling. Plus I sot 2 ground squirrels and a jack rabbit with the pellet pistol. Some thing carried off one of the traps a couple days ago. We have had a big hawk playing in the sprinklers on the lawn and setting in one of the trees so I think he may have carried a varmint away with the trap. I put the big jack rabbit on a rock the other day and the hawk was right on it and fighting the ravens too of course.

I wanted to drop back the overall time the drip runs because the water bill has been steadily creeping up with the heat.  If I had everything mulched thick, I probably could have gotten away with it but I have too many beds that are unmulched right now.

I think there are too many variables to really give a good recommendation on how long to run a drip system.  The best advice would be to watch your plants and let them tell you when they are happy.  

Some other general guidelines would be to stay away from 1/4" tubing (I've had it heat up and pop out of the mainline on hot days, and it doesn't put out much volume) and make your runs as long as you can to be more efficient.  

I like to use drip tape.  I used to use the fittings without a valve (because they are cheaper) to plug the tape into my main line but now I like running 5 or more lines to each 4' wide bed (in the past I would run 4 lines to each bed) and putting a valve on each line so I can turn them on and off as needed.  More lines are better for something like carrots where I have 10 rows in the bed but I don't need them all putting out water for something like melons that are only planted in the middle of the bed.

Another thing to consider is that different crops have different water needs.  My tomatoes didn't bat an eye at the change but my corn was on life support (I actually thought it was dead when I first saw it).

There is a lot of variation in desert climates as well.  The temperatures xtrastout has right now are downright pleasant compared to what I'm dealing with.  

And naturally, the duration for watering will change with the temperatures.  I dial my drip system back significantly during the winter months.

Honestly, the smart play would be for me to not even grow a garden right now.  If I didn't enjoy gardening so much I would harvest everything in early June and start again around August or September.

I resisted investing in a drip system for a long time and even though I spent a lot of time hand watering, my crops still suffered.  

The best recommendation I can make for folks gardening in the desert is to use a lot of mulch and invest in a good drip irrigation system on a timer.

Yes, the lines stay in place and are turned on and off as needed.  Need fluctuates with crop and time of year.  As a general rule I no-till everything.  If I feel the need to aerate a bed or add material I can pull the lines to the side so they are out of my way. I put them back in the bed when I finish doing whatever I need to do.  Either way, I leave them plugged into the mainline versus pulling them and using goof plugs to block the holes.  It's easier storage.

I'm sure I've said it before but that's the best time to garden around here.

Pretty much every year.  June is the hottest and driest month of the year so it really makes gardening tough.  Some years we might have a particularly good and long monsoon season and that helps.  Even so, our daily highs tend to stay near or over 100 degrees until sometime in October.

Most tomato and pepper plants won't even set fruit at those temperatures.  The tomatoes I am harvesting currently were mostly pollinated in May.  Some varieties do better in the heat than others so experience helps.  

Also, melons and sweet potatoes are exceptions.  They seem to love the heat as long as they get adequate water.

My garden is finished. The ears on the corn only developed a few kernels scattered about. The tomatoes are not much bigger than raisins.

The grapes are about the size of a twenty two. A friend from town said his have already ripened and I'm only five hundred feet higher so I don't think the elevation is the reason.

A neighbor gave me a few blackberry plants but they were wilted by the time he got here. One has survived but it is spreading out on the ground instead of growing tall. I have never seen a blackberry do that before.

I had a few wild roses that I brought from a friends ranch about 6 years ago. Of course the rabbits got into them. I put a fence around the survivors and fertilized them with Miracle Grow. Apparently wild roses didn't like the fertilizer, they all died but one. I transplanted it down by the garden and it just lingered for years and then it began to thrive and is spreading. The only thing I have to do is water it so no green thumb is required.

Many years ago we had the yard landscaped. My wife wanted some boulders and the contractor was eager to sell me some. I told him I had all the boulders I ever needed and to just go through the gate and bring some up to the house. He planted a few Russian sage and now it has taken over and you can't see the rocks. We cut it back every year and pull up the new shoots but it is a never ending all summer effort. Some of it has started up down by the garden and I am OK with that so I will continue watering the sage the roses and the grapes and berry bush.

The corn sounds like a pollination issue.  In the future, make sure you plant in blocks, with the plants and rows fairly close together.  If the corn gets blown over during the reproductive stages, that can really affect the ability of the tassels to drop pollen on the silks.  

Corn also needs a lot of water throughout its growth and plenty of nitrogen before it tassels.  I don't have a ton of experience with corn but what I have learned so far is that it is very important to keep stress off the plants during the reproductive phase.

It has been my experience that you really need to find a tomato variety that does well in your area.  As a general rule of thumb, the big, Beefsteak types aren't that great in hot, dry climate.  Big tomatoes especially tend to shut down their production once the heat ramps up. Certain cherry tomatoes will only produce tiny, marble sized fruit for me under the same conditions.  Yellow Pear takes the heat pretty well if you want a prolific cherry type tomato.

Next year, try Early Girl and Cherokee Purple tomatoes.  4th of July tomatoes also produce a prolific fall harvest for me if I can keep them alive through summer.  Those are all indeterminate varieties.  

For determinates, I have also had luck with Celebrity and Roma although the Roma's don't always get as large as I would like.  You might also want to try Heatmaster and Solar Fire.

I can't help with the grapes.  I have one neglected Thompson's Seedless vine and it has never produced anything worth eating.  I trimmed it up properly last winter and it put out a bunch of clusters this spring but they never got bigger than the tip of my pinky.  It could possibly be a pH issue that's preventing the proper uptake of nutrients but that's just a wild ass guess on my part.

The friend from town says I over watered the grapes.

For corn I dug holes a couple feet across and a few inches deep so as to hold the water long enough to let it soak in. I planted seven seeds to each recessed area and put in two rows.  I watered it every day and on really hot days if the leaves started to curl I watered it twice.

I dug the same recessed beds for the tomatoes and watered them daily.

I fertilized with Miracle Grow every two weeks and later on every week.

I trapped and shot around 55 rats and ground squirrels so far.

I don't think two rows is sufficient for corn.  Since corn is wind pollinated, you want a block formation to ensure that if the wind blows the pollen away from one row, it will land on the silks of the plants that are down wind.

Personally, I would shoot for a minimum of four rows.  Since sweet corn plants are smaller than field corn and since I grow in raised beds, I plant my corn on 12" rows.  I spaced my plants at 8" in the rows this year but I got a lot of tillering so I'm going to shrink that down to 4" or 6" next year.  I'm also thinking about adding a fifth row in my 4' wide beds but I don't want to go too crazy because it is hard to keep sufficient moisture in the soil when things get really hot.

By the way, all the fertilizer in the world won't help much if the soil pH is off.  When the pH is outside of a plant's acceptable range it can cause nutrient lockout.

Consistent watering is also really important.  Do everything you can to keep the plants from wilting.  Even if it is only for a brief period of time, it can really affect yields.