>>1610314The sunflowers will block nearly all the light from everything. They should always be in the back/shadow side of all crops except crops that thrive in more ambient light conditions, like cole crops grown in the summer. This year, I did something a bit different. I did the normal thing where I have cattle panels as trellises for tomato plants. Then on their southern/shade side I planted corn. The corn I planted was pink popcorn. The height of the popcorn is supposed to be 3-4 feet. It grew to about 6-8 feet due to the reduced light. Of the corn ears that were properly pollinated they did very well.
Had I to do over again, I would have twice the width for the rows of corn so they could have better pollination rates and larger ears. As you can see in these images, the corn is very well shaded. It was planted well after the tomatoes were very tall. In the last two images you can see some of the tops of the corn peaking out over the back side of the tomato plants and some stalks to the left side of the 2nd to last pic. The stalk thickness of these light-starved plants was pretty narrow. When I tied up the tomato plants, I also put a couple strands of twine across the corn side to help protect them against errant wind.
The field section where these corn plants are in the garden is located is far away from any other shade. It receives full sun from something like 8am to 7pm in summer. If you have buildings or trees that further block light then your corn may have quite a bit of trouble. Normally, corn needs tons of light. It should be noted that my trellis isn't for privacy and does not block light like your trellis might.
