Winner of Greendale Tall Corn Stalk Contest Measured 17' 11" Tall

Things have been looking up all summer for Brian North, at least in his garden. To his amazement, and that of his neighbors, the giant corn seed of this Franklin gardener just kept growing...growing...and growing.

One of his Jack-in-the-Beanstalk plants eventually topped all others across Wisconsin in the first-ever “”. His winning stalk stretched to an amazing 17 feet 11 inches tall!

The contest resulted in over a hundred entries, with each of the more than a hundred contestants bringing photo evidence to the Most showed growers posing proudly beside their cloud-seeking stalks, eager to share their “tall stories” with anyone who would listen.

As the grand prize winner, North received a bushel of prizes from downtown Greendale shops — a free dinner for two at Harmony Inn, a $100 “Surprise Basket” of kitchen gadgets and cookbooks from the Greendale Visitor Center, plus a hopper of other items including candy corn and homemade chocolates from Apples of Eden.

This isn’t the first crop contest North has won. Over the years he’s entered and won various prizes in vegetable competition at the Wisconsin State Fair. In fact, he said he used part of his winnings from the fair to buy a new, taller ladder to measure his sky-high corn stalks!

His tried-and-true growing technique: He feels it’s highly important to use a good compost to get the seed going in the spring; then he uses a high nitrogen fertilizer throughout the season.

Winner of the “just for Greendalers” portion of the contest was Matt Maciejewski, a freshman at . His best-in-the-village stalk measured an impressive 15 feet 11 inches.

Matt loves to garden, his mother says, and grows huge sunflowers, giant pumpkins and a variety of vegetables. His secret ingredient was a natural fish fertilizer that works like a steroid.

Village Seems Like Iowa

A drive through the Greendale historical suburb these days is a bit like a drive through Iowa this time of year.

Giant-high stalks wave in the breeze in backyard gardens throughout the village, with some of them stretching to the second floor windows of local homes!

And the crop isn’t limited to area homes—tall tasseled corn surprises shoppers walking along Broad Street as well. The stalks in front of have stretched over the top of the white arbor out front, and that’s 14 feet high!

All this is the result of this “Greendale Tall Corn Contest”, begun last spring with the distribution of giant hybrid seed from Brazil. Over 2,000 packets of the super seed--enough kernels in each to start six plants--were sold for $1 at the Greendale Visitor Center in late April.

One of the things growers liked about the contest is that there were no rules! Gardeners were encouraged to apply any tricks learned from Grandpa, secret fertilizers, purified water, whatever...maybe try a “grow light” to make the crop think the sun never went down.

The “planting tips” handed out with the seed even suggested growers might even head out barefoot in the middle of the night and pour a thumb of their favorite wine, brandy or beer around the roots.

It appears the two winners, North and Maciejewski, didn’t have to resort to such tricks. A lot of TLC and--along with this sum-mer’s unusual stretch of hot days—turned this corny contest into more than just a tall tale.

So if you’re itching to take a drive to experience “a bit of the country”, you can save time and gas by just driving to Greendale.