Painted Mountain corn.

[Jayb]

It might be a bit late as I've only just sown mine, hoping for an Indian summer  ;D. I wasn't going to grow any this year but as I'm likely to have spare space in the spud patch soon, I thought I'd take a chance. I've sown seeds from last year's seed circle and some fresh seed bought from Nichols Nursery, so I can compare and hopefully increase the gene pool.

It is an early variety so hopefully will grow on quickly now it's nearly mid summer!!!!!!!!

[Jayb]

[SueK]

Same here, Jayb, have just sown some of our seed circle seeds.  I tell myself (and pray) that surely the weather has to change at some point!  :)

Fingers crossed, it will be both ornamental and something new to try, and I think my two boys will enjoy keeping an eye on it if it's so picturesque - they were very impressed just by the appearance of the seeds alone.  When you look at some of the American sites, you realise how limited our options normally are over here, and how we tend to make very little use of it compared to them.

[goodlife]

I sowed every single seed that was in parcel and as I mentioned in other thread..the germination was good.
BUT..my plants have been in ground nearly a month now and they've hardly grown.. ::) For firs couple of weeks they were really sulking as the weather was so cool and they turned quite yellow..but then the temperatures raised abit and now they are nice and green but this amount of rain is not helping.. >:(
Too much of the good thing is not good...water, water every where.. ::)
Fingers crossed that all our corn manages to make some cobs this year..

[markfield rover]

I will be planting out at the weekend-so will hopefully be back to you for culinary tips !

[Jayb]

Snap, well hoping to plant if it isn't waterlogged!

Hope yours are coming along now Goodlife, I guess it is a good trial as to what will grow in our glorious climate. I've still plenty of seeds left if anyone needs some.  My sweet corn isn't growing much  :'(

[Jayb]

Mine are just starting to tassel and show some silks, hope we get a nice bit of weather to help them along  ::)

[goodlife]

Tassels on mine have been and gone and now the cobs have started to swell. I do admit that I did harvest the pollen from each of my 100+ plants and hand pollinated all the tassels. I'm hoping me playing 'mother nature' will ensure good pollination. Taller plants are about 4 ft but majority are shorter (3 ft). I'm not sure if that is to do with growing conditions or if the variety throws such difference with the plant sizes!?
PLEASE...lets have some decent weather for another few weeks so I can have at least one decent crop...and I WANT my corn to be that one!!

[Jayb]

I was surprised at how short they were last year, I did have a couple of very short ones but I pulled those out so they didn't mix further with the gene pool. I haven't noticed any real difference so far with my PM and the new stock I bought in. Fingers crossed I get some sort of harvest.

Here's wishing your corn on to ripen quickly and be beautiful cobs for you  ;D

[artichoke]

My one real success this year has been my sweetcorn, carefully following Jeannine's advice, and we have been eating it for a couple of weeks. Even won a prize at local show yesterday with it. It's taller than me and very leafy and productive; somehow the particular accidental combination of early planting out under fleece, rain and sunshine have suited it.

My second sowing is as described here, static, short, not developing.

[goodlife]

WELL.....I just couldn't wait to see how my cobs have been developing and if my hand pollinating had worked.
I picked one cob randomly from the edge of the bed..here;

[goodlife]

AND...here it is 'peeled'...I do have to say the colour of the 'paper' is beautiful.
[attachment=1]

Looking good  ;D..the cobs seem to be right stage for eating. I had nibble on that one and the sugars are there, not too sweet, just right. It started to rain now, so I'm having few cobs tomorrow for our dinner  ;D..plenty to go at and plenty leave to mature into seed stage.  ;D

At least something have worked out OK...pheww..

[Jayb]

Yumm, looking good Goodlife  ;D, what a surprise to see pale kernels on that one, I thought they would have been red!

[goodlife]

Yumm, looking good Goodlife  ;D, what a surprise to see pale kernels on that one, I thought they would have been red!

I don't think it had developed the colour yet. There was odd tiny fleck of colour on few seeds..but as I nibbled the cob raw..the sugars were already there and tasted nice.

[Jayb]

That makes more sense, I was thinking it was mature, I think it would have been a double red - nice.

How were they cooked, I've only had them raw?

[goodlife]

I had the 'uncoloured' one just raw..but we had barbeque this weekend and I cooked few on that way. No butter, nothing..just cobs on 'fire' and they were really NICE...and I could already see few different colours developing on seed surfaces so they have been advancing quite a lot since that first one on photo. Warm weather have helped a lot.

[Jayb]

Sounds good  :)
I think mine are just going to be a tad too late in the season, been raining here the last couple of days too which doesn't help  :(

If you have the chance it would be great if you could do a couple more pictures when you harvest  :) be great to see how they have done with you :)

[goodlife]

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If you have the chance it would be great if you could do a couple more pictures when you harvest 
will do.. ;D

[goodlife]

Here we are..some that I harvested today...

[goodlife]

Is this what you mentioned earlier?..the double red one? I had some red pigment on other cobs too but it looked like brown staining on surface..there is on cob like that in the group photo..funny colour combinations and oddly all the red cobs that I've picked so far have been very neat and tidy in seed row formations and the ones with all different colours 'all over the place'???

[Jayb]

Excellent, they look great  I'm really glad they look like they have done well for you.
My seed came from Brown Envelopes and I think they were cropped there, so they have now been grown out a minimum of three UK seasons. Looks like they cope well with our seasons. I picked a few cobs this week, yum they didn't make it out of the garden!

Some of the reds were very dark and had red foliage with red seed with red core to the cobs. Others were red coloured cobs but either had green foliage or green/white centre to cob core, colour was not so uniform and many you could make out crossing with other colours. I thought last year it might be fun to pick out the 'double reds' and grow them out