Topic: Yum Yum (and advice needed........again!!!)

[jo9919]

Today was sweetcorn harvesting day  ;D

Well, when I say sweetcorn harvesting day, I mean I picked two of the cobs and scoffed them  :P  They were delicious.

I did have worries last week after finding the cobs infested with blackfly, but I did as I was advised and jetsprayed the little blighters and then used a soap solution. It worked  ;D

As most of you know, I am growing in containers as I don't have a lottie (on the waiting list now), and I didn't think it would be possible to grow sweetcorn in containers, but following advice from A4A I gave it a go.

For those of you in the same situation as me, I have planted two sweetcorn plants to a 12.5'' wide container. I planted up six containers, so have twelve plants in total, each producing on average two cobs (some plants have three, some only one). I sowed the sweetcorn seed in individual pots to start them off and then transplanted them. The seed was very, very kindly donated by Jeannine (thank you so much Jeannine, you're a star).

Like I say, I picked a couple of cobs today and had a pan of boiling water at the ready. They were in the pan for five minutes, so from picking to my mouth it must have been a maximum of ten minutes.

This is one thing that I will grow every year from now on. I still have lots more cobs to harvest, and I can't wait  ;D ;D ;D

One thing I need to know.........I've heard about cross polination with sweetcorn. I have some seeds for baby sweetcorn. Am I safe to grow baby sweetcorn and normal sweetcorn in close proximity?

Thanks for reading,

Jo.

[Jeannine]

Jo, super to hear it worked for you, sweetcorn is one thing that shop bought can't compete with, re your question, baby sweetcorn etc, it really does depend on which ones, sweetcorn falls into 3 families..regular or normal corn , these can be hybrids or not , another is the sugar enhanced types and the third is supersweet.  Cross pollination between a supersweet and one of the other two will result in tough starchy kernels when you harvest. You therefore should avoid this by different maturity dates(10-15 days) or distance (25-30 feet). Bear in mind that any corn can be a mini , just pick them berfore they are pollinated or remove the tassle at the top of the plant which is a male, however other plants can also pollinate them

If you know the names of the corn you propose to grow I can tell you which family they belong to and if they will cross. XX Jeannine

[jo9919]

Thanks Jeannine.

You're getting a bit scientific for me now. My theory of 'shove it in and see if it grows' doesn't bode well here then  :P

OK, the large sweetcorn I want to grow are the ones you sent me (and are absolutely delicious) Honey Select F1 and the baby ones are from T&M Sweetcorn baby corn.

I can't do anything about the distance factor as I'm growing in my back garden, but when you mention the different maturity dates, does this mean planting them at different times?

Help.............

Thanks Jeannine,

Jo.

[Jeannine]

As long as you harvest on time they will be Ok together, you don't need to worry about trying to plant your babies close together or in blocks as you would with your big corn.

You must harvest when the tassells first show, leaving them even 5 days too late would make them too big,f you forgot and they grew on they would grow into full size corn, some varieties produce a better shape baby corn..a good one is Bodacious which is a good one full size too.

It isn't planting times that makes the maturity different, corn can be an early, a mid season or a late maturing one. usually an early is good for baby corn.

Ah, the pressure!!

You could use the ones I sent you for both baby and fullsize!!

XX Jeannine

[jo9919]

Thanks Jeannine.

I love baby corn, so I might try both the T&M ones and the ones you sent for baby corn, and then let some of the ones you sent me grow on into large corn, would this work?

Thanks for your help,
Jo.

[Jeannine]

Yes, as long as you don't let the T&M ones grow and get fertilised  or they will crossXX Jeannine

[jo9919]

Thanks Jeannine.

I'll keep an extra special eye on the T&M ones then and pick them immediately. It will be interesting to see which baby corn I prefer.

Jo.