hi all, can anyone tell me how many cobs i should get on my plants? i'm just trying to work out how many to grow. i have never grown them before (never grown anything for that matter) so any advice appreciated :)
also i understand about blocking but is there a best size?
thank you
lbb
2 on most these days,occasionally you might get three and with some varieties only 1. The best number to get in order to get good cobs is two though,
XX Jeannine
I grew sweetcorn for the first time last year. Got only one on each plant in bed that was not manured and got two on bed that was well manured.
Different type in each bed and on different ends of the plot (seems that you should not grow different types too close.
I am sure you will get better advice but good luck. They all tasted brill when eaten as soon as picked. ;D
gosh is that all :( there go my dreams of eating loads of corn, i was hoping that since it needs so much space it might have a higher yeald
thank you for the answers
Two seems to be the norm. Plant out in a 3x3 or 4x4 block to increase chances of pollination.....eaten raw off the plant is pure heaven.
ok, i know i am going to love the taste of all my mega fresh grown by me stuff but what is going to give me good/the best yields to feed every one?
You will find that 2 is really all you want, the commercial growers actually prefer the ones that give two as they are better corn. Corn grows pretty tall but you don't need to have a huge space to get plenty of cobs, you need only allow 1 square foot a plant. If planting in rows plant four rows, 30 inches apart with plants every 8 inches in rows. If planting in blocks plant every every 12- 15 inches both ways.
XX Jeannine
how about the 'baby' ones, you get many more off them and they're good in stir fries :)
I am not sure what you mean by your last question?
Don't forget to give them a shake from time to time to help the pollination :)
Quote from: Jeannine on March 10, 2008, 19:15:41
You will find that 2 is really all you want, the commercial growers actually prefer the ones that give two as they are better corn. Corn grows pretty tall but you don't need to have a huge space to get plenty of cobs, you need only allow 1 square foot a plant. If planting in rows plant four rows, 30 inches apart with plants every 8 inches in rows. If planting in blocks plant every every 12- 15 inches both ways.
XX Jeannine
Jeannine, stop it.....I'm slavering all over the keys!!! :P
oh so you can grow them quite close together??? I was thinking of lining them up along my paths, so they don't really take up an individual patch of their own - and every 8 inches seems quite close together.
Can anyone tell me how to grow them? do you sow in tubs or pots and then plant them out? and when should I do that? I have 30 Lark seeds this year.
They should to be planted in blocks (I think for pollination reasons) so single line planting probably isn't a good idea
My way:
3rd week April; I scatter seed along severel layers of wet tissue in a seed tray. I put the lid on and leave it somewhere warm for 4 days.
I then plant each seed singly in a tall paper pot. (They don't like root disturbance.)
Grow on in the greenhouse and harden off for 2/3 days before planting out in late May.
I put mine in blocks of 4x4 about 15" apart and expect to harvest late August.
When the 'silk' on the cob top has withered, pull back one leaf so you can see a few kernels. Press your thumb nail into one. If it squirts out milky....it's ready.
Take a firm hold and push downwards. It should snap off the plant. Take it round the back of your shed and scoff it all by yourself.
Failing that, get it home ASAP and boil it for 5 mins in a pan of water.....eat with melted butter you lucky thing you.
Ken.
Since I started 2 years ago I have used those cardboardy peat pot style pots (can't remember what they're called but they don't have peat in them) and they have worked well. I've run out of those but have rather a lot of root trainers - has anyone tried using root trainers for sweetcorn?
PS not dexterous enough for paper pots :)
yep, we grow ours in rootrainers, barnowl..works very well..not dextrous enough here, either ;D
Would toilet roll inners be any good as well, I've been saving them since Christmas and have a garage full now.
and if they are, can they just be left in the ground to rot or do they need to be removed before planting? :)
never got on very well with T roll tubes I always use root-trainers. last year my sweetcorn went potty and produced as many as 6 on some plarts however only 2 grew into proper cobbs, I think if it happens this year I will remove the small ones so the energy goes to the top ones and I will be using the protection of (ventilated) plastic bottles again
marg
Quote from: Tatiana on March 11, 2008, 16:46:39
and if they are, can they just be left in the ground to rot or do they need to be removed before planting? :)
I've used toilet rolls and find them good for sweetcorn. At planting time, you'll find the rolls are just about falling to pieces anyway, but if not, just poke your thumb through the sides and then plant the lot, plant and roll.
I grow mine in a similar manner to KK i.e. I soften the seed
Firstly I don't sow them until about three weeks before planting out time.
I start by soaking them for a few hours then put one seed in a 3" pot, or if I use cell trays, one per cell.
When plants are about 6" high I plant out.
I find that if I was to wait for the plants to grow bigger the plants could become pot bound, and this is something I don't want.
Another reason I wait so long before sowing is;
If I were to sow earlier and couldn't get them planted out they would become pot bound, and I like to grow my plants without the 'check' this causes.
If I have rootrainers available then I sow in these after soaking for 24 hours.
Last year, they were all in use, as they're likely to be this year, so I soak for 24 hours then plant in a deep margerine tub. After a couple of weeks I prick out into recycled vending machine cups, grow on for about 3 weeks then plant out, usually in mid to late May.
I shall be sowing mine in a couple of weeks.
If you are short of space, have you thought of doing a *Three Sisters Bed* scheme
The interplanting of corn, beans, and squash together – a trio often referred to as the "three sisters."
In a three sisters planting, the three partners benefit one another. Corn provides support for beans. Beans, like other legumes, have bacteria living on their roots that help them absorb nitrogen from the air and convert it to a form that plants can use. (Corn, which requires a lot of nitrogen to grow, benefits most.) The large, prickly squash leaves shade the soil, preventing weed growth, and deter animal pests. The three sisters also complement each other nutritionally
http://www.kidsgardening.com/growingideas/projects/March02/mar02-pg1.htm
I NEVER soak corn seed.For the old open pollinated corn it was suggested even for the hybrid sweets but with the newer ones especially the shrunken kernel supersweets they rot so easily. I actually don't even soak sugar enhanced ones anymore.Warm damp soil is really all they need. I haven't soaked corn seed for thirty years or more and I get excellent germination with very few dead cells.
Each to their own of course .
XX Jeannine
Oh Jeannine, I soaked mine and only one of the Applause F1 put out a shoot and the others rotted.
My Chires Babycorn have all germinated so I will not have problems there.
I grow on a bed system, 4ft wide, 3 rows per bed, on fertile soil, I get 2 cobs, sometimes 3 per plant, F1 seed if you want to eat them all on same day.
moisture retention is as important as fertility.
rgds, tonybloke
I was hoping to do a two sisters bed, the sweetcorn and the squash, but does anyone know the spacing for this?
Quote from: laura G on March 12, 2008, 11:27:24
I was hoping to do a two sisters bed, the sweetcorn and the squash, but does anyone know the spacing for this?
Well I know you can do the three sisters in a *Square Foot Gardening* style so I cannot see why a foot apart won't be any different for a two sisters bed.
I grew sweetcorn and squash together last year, I had a block of 40 sweetcorn planted about a foot apart each way, and just missed a sweetcorn plant out on each row in a different place and planted a trailing squash. As they grew, I just guided the squash around the sweetcorn patch which suppressed weeds very well.
(http://i93.photobucket.com/albums/l47/dlp133/LateAugust2007132.jpg)
This year, I'm going to try strawberry plants interplanted with the corn in a raised bed....should be interesting, anyone ever tried that combination?
oh thank you, thats exactly what i want to do ;D
Just to add , this year I am going to do two sowings usual time and a later one ,if we get an Indian summer may get a longer cropping
time.
WHAT a brilliant idea! I never would have thought of doing that! Now I have solved the dilemma of where to plant the sweet corn, I will pop it in the area I was saving for the melons and pumpkins. I had better get a good load of manure in there, quick smart...
So to sum up :
sow in April for planting out early May?
Guess they like rich soil??
Can use toilet roll for sowing and direct planting without root disturbance?
If you sow twice, at, say a three week interval, can you get two crops? or will it all ripen at the same time anyway? Thought maybe a later in May planting might give a second later crop (stays fairly warm here till Oct).
Am I the only person here that freezes my sweetcorn? You can only eat so much straight off the plant. Does this make me a sweetcorn heretic ? :o
It all seems to come at once so we freeze.
I definitely froze lots last year. And this made OH very popular in the pub, because he took some in for mates every now and again. They loved it - of course, that might have been because it was free rather than simply because of the quality. ::) ;D
Antipodes , I have never sown twice but have read it somewhere ,just want to stretch the season and nothing to lose.
I used to sow twice, but never really got a proper successon of crops. I now sow once in May to plant out in June.
Perhaps two different varieties might work although I can't say I know of any that are described as 'late' or 'Early'.
I plant three different compatible varieties, unless I want a big freezer load which I do some years.
Usually I plant an ultra early , a mid season and a late. I try to plant 1 golden, 1 bicolour and 1 white.
Never use toilet rolls etc, just jiffy 7s then into 3 inch pots, or stright inot 3 inch pots if I have no jiffies.
I find corn very easy to grow if you understand it's needs.
XX Jeannine
Sorry, I was completely wrong (as Jeannine is too kind to point out :) ), there are varieties described as "ultra early , mid season and late", I just haven't looked closely enough.
However the terms seem to be applied rather inconsistently, with Simpsons seeds describing one as 'early' that crops in early September and Realseeds as just 'pretty early' for one that crops in August! Elsewhere one that crops in September is described as late, so probably best to base seed buying on the harvest time given rather than just the description.
I can't even tackle- not too early - etc just going with same one, different sowing times.
Hi, I base my decision on the US descriptions which seem to be much more consistant and I allow for the differences in weather eg I pick varieties that are Ok for similar growing areas from over there.
I never pick a really late one as they are iffy at best, I tend to go by days to harvest too but generally if it is a variety i am not familiar with I check it out with one of the unis that deal with plants which seems to work pretty well.It is hard to keep up though as corn comes and goes all the time
XX Jeannine