Honestly, if compost is all you added to your raised beds then it must have been a gold mine of magical compost!

I am surprised your corn is looking as good as it is. Compost is a soil amendment, not a fertilizer and very low in nutrients. So I don't know where your corn got all the nitrogen it needed to reach this point. And corn is a nitrogen hog. It is THE nitrogen hog of garden crops. Fish emulsion can't supply all it needs unless you use a lot of it, much less compost.

The common approach to growing corn is well-amended soil with high nitrogen fertilizers prior to planting and then a second feeding at the 5-6 leaf stage (so-called "knee-high) of something along the line of ammonium nitrate at 40-0-0 or similar product to get it to the ear formation stage.

As an organic gardener I don't use ammonium nitrate but use blood meal 13-0-0, cottonseed meal 6-2-1, and feather meal 12-0-0 instead. But I can do that because I have a decades old, well developed soil food web to digest them so the plants can use the nutrients in them.

So I don't know what to tell you about yours at this point. It has to have heavily depleted whatever nitrogen was there to begin with and it is past feeding time now. I think about all you can do now is try the fish emulsion every 7-10 days and keep your fingers crossed for good tassel and ear development.

Type "feeding corn" in the search bar here for many previous discussions of the subject.

Dave

Jacob - it seems to be growing well and looks to be a nice shade of green in the picture. The usual recommendation is to fertilize with a high nitrogen fertilizer when 8-12" high and again when the plants start to tassel. I don't see tassels forming on your's yet. Stowell's evergreen is listed as 80-100 days and I would guess with a fairly late planting for your area they would be done closer to 80 than 100. Fish Emulsion is pretty pretty weak as far as nitrogen fertilizers go so maybe try multiple (2 or 3) applications of it at recommended strength over a 7-10 day span when you first see tassels forming. I would guess you will see them start forming in a couple weeks.

ETA - Dave beat me to the punch. Listen to him!!!

Thank you for the reply, Dave. They seem to be growing inches every day....Last fall we did add 4 bags of peat moss, 1 for each 50 square foot bed (4 beds). This is not a lot, but could this be the reason? I do say, that, the compost was a gold mine of worms and bacterial activity....There just have been thousands in the one trailer load bought. Could this also have helped? I also forgot that we grew beans in the same spot last year. Strangely, they only grew 2 in. Tall and then never grew anymore all season.

I will research the archives in the search bar as you suggested, and try fish emulsion. Thank you for the help!

Jacob

Peat moss like compost amends the soil. They improve its texture and water retention ability and the compost is food for any soil residents. But neither of them provide plant nutrients except in a very indirect manner and then only in small doses.

So I am going to guess that the compost your purchased had at least some fertilizer, some nutrient source, in some form added to it. Perhaps animal manures or an unusual amount of grass clippings. It would be worth the time to talk to the source to see what all it contained. Some compost makers will add alfalfa meal or cottonseed meal or similar high nitrogen to their compost to speed up the decomposition.

But keep in mind for future reference that so much nitrogen from compost is the exception and not the rule.

You don't have to use synthetic fertilizers if you don't want to but you do have to supply N-P-K and the micronutrients in some form for dependable success and there are many organic sources of those available. Compost, in the normal use of the word, just won't provide all they need.

Dave