Topic: Sweetcorn!

[Deb P]

Picked the first lot of Sweetcorn yesterday, we had three of them in the pot within twenty minutes of picking, and they were eaten 10 minutes later, delicious! First year I've had such a good crop, pic is of the rest of the picking before freezing. Every stem has two cobs with the lower ones not quite ripe yet. Variety is 'Incredible', best I've grown in the 12 years I've had allotment, the weather must have suited them but I'll definitely grow them again next year!

[AnnieD]

Mine have been woeful compared to last year.  I just checked and Incredible is what I've just ordered for next year, so fingers crossed.

[saddad]

Almost all of mine had gone too far... rock hard kernels... and I'm on the other side of the alley from Deb!

[Deb P]

Almost all of mine had gone too far... rock hard kernels... and I'm on the other side of the alley from Deb!

Oh dear that's sad....we planted them out on the same day as well?! Same variety?

[Obelixx]

No edible crop last year cos of a very long drought and none this year either cos of drought from mid June tho I did water them.   I suspect they didn't like the heatwave when we got into plus 40s for a couple of weeks in July.   I grew a different variety but still had sparse kernels that didn't grow fat and juicy.

Shan't bother next year.

[saddad]

Mine was Ovation...

never had it go over so quickly before...

[Obelixx]

Have checked my records.  Last year was Rustler and this year was Zenith, an F1 that should have done better.  Choice is limited here.

[BarriedaleNick]

Odd year for me with corn.  Virtually all of mine seemed to go over really quickly and when I pulled them out they didn't seem deep rooted.  They were small and started rotting at the ends..
However on OHs plot just afew miles from mine they were excellent,  Early, full cobs, two on most plants and really tasty.  She has really free draining soil and I am on clay but I have always had good corn.

[galina]

Odd year for me with corn.  Virtually all of mine seemed to go over really quickly and when I pulled them out they didn't seem deep rooted.  They were small and started rotting at the ends..
However on OHs plot just afew miles from mine they were excellent,  Early, full cobs, two on most plants and really tasty.  She has really free draining soil and I am on clay but I have always had good corn.

Sorry you didn't both have good corn. 

Just as an aside comment, I love your comparison between the two plots where you have the same climate for growing, but very different soils.  That's an education in itself.  I think over the years you will work out what grows better on which plot and grow some things only on one or the other plot.  Fascinating insight. 

[saddad]

Mine were shallow rooted, unusual in itself... several had blown over at least once, maybe that was the issue between mine and Deb P's. Never had sweetcorn blow over before.

[ancellsfarmer]

I find its best to deeply plant seeds into pots and then deeply plantout the young corn when the first root is visible through the pot drainage holes. Mulching around the established transplants with more compost or lawn mowings helps, they can reach down quite quickly. No water given at all this year, resulting in plenty of cobs, which were regrettably shared with pigeons. They did reach maturity earlier than usual. Variety, Bicolour from realseeds.

[Deb P]

If you have a look at my gallery, there is a pic of this years sweetcorn in their protected high sided 'cloche' OH made me out of an old twin walled plastic conservatory. I've used it every year to give a bit more protection to young plants as I plant out first week of June, (and beasties eating mature ones to an extent, I still had a couple of nibbled cobs!) I fit 32 plants in the 8'x4' and it seems to work well, this year it helped keep the roots a bit more sheltered and cool, but I watered twice a week in the really hot weather which I don't usually need to do.

[nodig]

I grew tendersweet lark sweetcorn this year.  Pretty good crop but what was unusual was that lots of wasps were having a go as well, which proves how sweet (and tender) the sweetcorn was.

[Beersmith]

For me it was a great season. I grew minipop and swift and both cropped heavily, although I did work hard watering when the drought was at its worst.

The only downside was that everything seemed to ripen at exactly the same moment. So the picking season was sadly rather brief. Fortunately sweetcorn freezes well so all in all a good year.

Interesting seasonal differences being reported. Mine were ready by the middle of August.

[George the Pigman]

Well I usually get a decent crop. I grow them in root-trainers and plant them out when they are about 6 inches high.
However this year things didn't go to plan. We were on holiday for two weeks in May and when I realised it was unlikely to rain while we were away I left them in the greenhouse with the watering system on.
When I came back they were 3 ft high and being in root-trainers had very small root balls!
I planted them out and although they took OK when the strong winds came a few weeks ago they blew over and the kernels were nibbled by the various critters we have on our plot. The kernels weren't fully mature anyway. I have two left which I am growing on and have put a plastic pop bottle over the cobs to stop them being eaten.
We have a lot of problems on our site over the years with the cobs (when they are ripe) being eaten by various beasties - probably birds or maybe squirrels or rats. The plastic bottle always stops them.