Nutritious Cover Crops

• Overwintering clover adds essential nitrogen to the soil.Ryan McVay/Photodisc/Getty Images
  
  Corn uses a lot of nutrients to produce healthy crops. Symptoms of nitrogen deficiency are yellowed leaves, skinny stalks and shriveled kernels. Popular high-nitrogen cover crops include fast-growing clover, rye and alfalfa. These crops are tilled into the soil prior to sowing corn. When tilling is not used, the cover crop is allowed to die back and left on top as a mulch. Wheat grasses have long roots that pull nitrogen from the depths of the soil.
  
  

The Three Sisters Tradition

• Green beans planted with corn add nitrogen.Thinkstock/Comstock/Getty Images
  
  A Native American tradition of planting squash and beans around corn is known as The Three Sisters. The beans add nitrogen to the soil as they climb up the corn using it as a living trellis. The beans reinforce the strength of the corn stalks so they don't fall over in the wind. Planning ahead and planting corn where beans grew the year before gives corn a nitrogen head start. Squash provides ground cover to conserve moisture and decrease weeds. Spiked squash plants also keep predators at bay.
  
  

Kitchen Garbage Soup

• A form of composting consists of collecting kitchen waste such as leftover, non-meat meals and raw vegetables then blending them into a soup. Instead of pouring the mixture into a compost pile, feed it to your corn crops. Dig a trench about 3 inches deep in between corn rows. Pour garbage soup through the trench and cover with soil. This is a quick way to get extra nitrogen and other essential nutrients to corn.
  
  

Coffee With Compost

• Used coffee grounds stimulate compost piles and add nitrogen.Jupiterimages/Photos.com/Getty Images
  
  Morning coffee will also wake up your compost and feed your corn with nitrogen. According to "Science Daily," used coffee grounds, by volume, contain about 2 percent nitrogen. For corn to get the nitrogen benefit from coffee grounds, the grounds must be composted first. Adding coffee grounds directly to the soil encourages soil microbes that consume nitrogen. Compost piles also heat up faster when coffee grounds are added. The paper filter can be tossed into the pile along with the grounds.