Every year we have a large garden. We really enjoy tending to our garden and taking care of each and every plant. All good things come to an end and September is usually when we start cleaning up the garden. We freeze peppers, tomatoes and zucchini. We plant row after row of corn but I will say there’s never any corn left over to freeze.
Our abundance of corn gives us row after row of cornstalks. Fall is a fun time of year to decorate. I can’t think of a better way to decorate than with cornstalks. Last evening we went to the garden and started digging up all of our cornstalks. It is a very time consuming chore but I promise you it’s worth it. If you don’t have a garden check around your area because farmers offer cornstalks for sale. Farmer’s markets will also have them. They can get pretty pricey so it’s best to check with local farmers. After we carefully dug up each corn stalk we cut the ball of dirt from the bottom of each one. There’s actually dirt and roots all entangled together. We used a large cutting tool to make the job easier. We placed all the cornstalks in wheel barrels and brought them up to the back of the house. We have a large picnic table that we placed all the cornstalks on. We will let them dry for a couple days and then we will begin to decorate with them. That’s the fun part. First there’s work and then the fun begins.
We have posts along our front porch that we decorate every year. We take 4 cornstalks per post and tie them up on the post with twine or string. Make very certain that you put a good knot in the string so that your cornstalks will stay secure. If you live in a windy area it’s best to tie your cornstalks in two different places. We put string on the top and the bottom. We live in the Northeast and sometimes we get high winds during the fall season.
We have a total of 4 posts on our porch so we use 16 corn stalks. If you don’t have posts or even a front porch you can tie corn stalks around your trees. It looks very festive during the fall season. Place some different size pumpkins near your corn stalks to make them really stand out.
If you like to decorate with scarecrows put some cornstalks on an old chair. Make sure the chair is weather resistant. Place some cornstalks on the chair or near the chair and place your scarecrow nearby. It’s a fun idea and your neighbors will love it. Placing a pumpkin near the scarecrow and cornstalks will add color to the scene. If you want to keep your pumpkin off the ground you can even place it on the chair.
Cornstalks actually can be placed just about anywhere. Make very certain that your cornstalks have not been broken down by animals. We had some squirrels that got into our garden and broke down several corn stalks. That’s never happened before but at least we now know that it’s a possibility. Thankfully we had a lot of good cornstalks.
Another favorite fall decorating idea is to take cornstalks and place them on a cement bench. We have one in the front of our house. Take some Indian corn and place the corn on the cornstalks. I love Indian corn because it’s so colorful. The combination of Indian corn and cornstalks make a colorful fall decoration. If you can’t find real Indian corn the craft stores usually have some that look real. What you want to achieve is the color combination.
During these days of recycling we try to find useful and fun ways to use items that we have around the yard.
We decorate with what we have. Since we are lucky enough to have so many cornstalks it makes since to use them in fun ways.
If anyone has any questions about decorating with cornstalks just ask and maybe I can give you some tips. I hope this article has given you some ideas for fall decorating.