what heritage variety of sweetcorn is best and where do I buy it?

[lottie lou]

a friend on the site asked me where to buy what she calls "old fashioned" sweetcorn.  From this I presume she means the heritage type.  However I would also like to know which variety is best.

Thanks for you assistance.

[lottie lou]

[plainleaf2]

white or yellow

[grannyjanny]

I bought some Golden Bantam BUT only because I have 4 buff bantams ::). When I looked it up it's an heirloom variety. Bet Jeannine will know if it's any good taste wise.

[chriscross1966]

) three places to grow I might welll give iot a go next year....

chrisc

[Jeannine]

Hi, if you can find it I would go for Double Standard, it is an old fashioned type corn, relatively new so not an heirloom.The reason I suggest this one is because it has been bred for cool seasons and has good germination even in cooler conditions.It is a bi colour which she might find different(some might be all yellow) but  if it is the old fashioned corn taste and chewy texture she is after I think and this one has it. I have personally never grown this one but it is said to have an excellent old corn taste.

Golden Bantam  as Grannyjanny said is a well known heirloom corn,all yellow , it has an excellent taste but has to be cooked the day it is picked, and as quickly as possible  and I can vouch for that, if you leave it longer it  will be starch by next day, but so will Double Standard. It is considered an early for a standard corn but not as early as Double Standard. GB should be easy to find in the UK though.Seeds can be kept from these two.

I would check with the friend to make sure she is sure about what she wants, if the truly older  corn both above are that kind..but the next thing that was bred is what we call simply hybrid corn, better shelf life than the standards but  still corny..she may be fine with this,and in fact she might mean this as   many people look on the hybrids as being old fashioned now,it is the sugar enhanced and supersweets that some folks view as the new corns and find too sweet and the kernels too crisp.

I know it sounds silly  but a gent on our old lottie grew corn seeds from his chicken scratch  or parrot food (I forget which),because he couldn't get the old seeds and it worked well for him.

XX Jeannine

[plot51A]

Real seeds have Double Standard as recommended by Jeannine.
http://www.realseeds.co.uk/sweetcorn.html

[campanula]

kelvedon wonder has always been googd for me

[Robert_Brenchley]

KW is an older type of F1, not a heritage variety.

[mhj75]

Our local hardware shop had a range of budget priced seeds and I got some Golden Bantam there. They were the Unwins range I think. So you may find them in the cheaper stores rather than the more upmarket garden centres.

[galina]

Country Gentleman sweetcorn does better for me than Golden Bantam.  My seeds were from a swap, but Seeds by Size stocks this corn.

It is fairly late, but a great tasting sweet corn and the cobs are always much better filled then Golden Bantam.