Allotments 4 All

can any one help how long should i leave my corn i read you leave till its brown and dry but wen i opened it not very ripe some nice and yellow but some white

Put it down to the year and wait for the next season-I`m no newbie when it comes to sweetcorn but my crop was total rubbish-less than 50% were full >:(

Same here  ::) I'm using the "Plastic bottle" idea (for the first time) to protect them from vermin but don't know when to remove them ??? Spose I'll have to take one off now and again to inspect ??? Bit of a pain as I have sellotaped them on tight ::) :P ;D

I have now completely finished harvesting my main crop sweetcorn and my mini corns.  My second batch have cobs now but they are a few weeks off harvesting.

Once the silks start to dry and go brown, peel back several layers and pierce a couple of the kernels with your thumb nail.  If the liquid that comes out is milky coloured, the cobs are ripe.  Some corn is whiter than others - some look very pale, but are still sweet, juicy and delicious.  All types vary.  If your cobs aren't full of 'proper' plump kernels, then that could be poor germination.  If the cobs are not ripe and you have opened them slightly, do put an elastic band around them to keep the covering wrapped around the cobs as the earwigs and ants will move in for lunch!

I've almost finished harvesting mine. There are still more cobs, but i don't see them ripening now. Trouble is, we eat the stuff so fast, I could fill the allotment with it and we'd still get through the lot.

Mine has been an utter disaster, after being eaten by the deer, the plants rallied and put up new shoots, which in turn flowered, but too few of the recovered to adequately pollinate, I have no cobs.

Odd - I think there's local conditions this year making some plots grow fantastic cobs and others terrible.

We were saying at the horticultural show on Saturday that our corn has done very well this year. I picked four massive cobs yesterday, thinking I'd freeze most of them, and two got snaffled by husband and one was my own tea so only one made it to the freezer! My problem with them is that they've pollinated almost too well - the top kernels are poking out of the husks and have been nibbled by earwigs. Least I can tell easily if they're ripe!

moonbells

Only just started picking mine this week.  They got off to a pretty bad  start and about one third of my 60+ didn't "take" so I wasn't hopeful BUT so far so good!  Only thing is about quite a few have "flattened" tips which don't seem to ripen like the rest of the cob but they will be easily cut off.

All in all I think it's been a funny year for most things :-\

We've been lucky?  As ever, Honey Bantam have done us proud. Averaging 450gm & 9-10". Only one 'burst' its bounds. Still picking. It's a 'variegated' variety.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v164/photo04/corn4.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v164/photo04/corn1.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v164/photo04/corn3.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v164/photo04/corn2.jpg

I've grown Minipop for the first time this year.  I can't remember which site it was on, but I said the male pollen bearing parts were appearing out of the top of the plants, but no sign of tassels.  I was told that the tassels would appear after the male pollen parts.    (I understand with Minipops you start picking when the tassels appear, as opposed to when they dry off on conventional sweetcorn). 

Well, the "corns are as high as an elephant's eye (if not taller), but there is no sign of  a tassel.  The male pollen bearing parts are virtually over.  Would I be right in thinking the best thing to do with the plants would be to consign them to the compost bin??

valmarg

Great pics Tim!  Mine latest cobs did the same as yours Moonbells!  Valmarg, if you haven't got any cobs yet, I would think they are done for.  My minipops finished a couple of weeks ago I guess.  If there are cobs, but no tassles, take one off and peel it open just to see what it is like inside....just in case something odd happened to the tassles.  It would be a shame to let the kernels develop as they are as tough as old gardeners boots and useless unless you are a chicken or hamster!

Squirrels got most of mine......
Just harvested the last of 'Kite' and 'Swift', but they were definitely going over..... :'(

Had a few sweetcorn and hopefully got more to come they are there but silks not brown. First year growing veg so i'm pleased with what we got. Another plot holder got nothing they didn't check it or read up about it to tell when ready must of lost about 100 plants.

More by luck than judgement, sweetcorn seems to work for me.

I sowed 24 plants, 22 worked and I reckon I've harvested 50 cobs of which some 75% are "tesco quality" and the rest close to shop quality.

My grief this year has been with earwigs/leatherjackets getig into the ripe crop.

Two weeks ago I fought off an urge to pick and (wisely) held back tw0 weeks.

Ignore advice!

Our (first ever) crop - put in two lots of seedlings about a month apart but they all ripened at pretty much the same time. We averaged about one and half decent ears per plant - is that normal? I was slightly disappointed that so much growth seemed to produce so little.

Anyway all finished now and my question is what should I do with the stalks? Do they compost ok?

The last lot - 'Extra Tender & Sweet' - are more average at 7". And about a dozen of those 40 were a bit patchy or not filled to the last inch.

Oh, & we've only averaged one per plant this year. Funny?

So have I, and only about half really filled out. Possibly the drought left the plants with insufficient energy to manage more than one?

PS - for those cooking their first cobs - for not more than 6-8 min - straight from the garden -

- remember this moment - it cannot be repeated!!

Amazing amount of corn, Tim, do you freeze it or eat it all fresh?  We are eating our way through about 15 cobs & I can't believe the difference between ours and shop bought.

I've had a brilliant crop this year.    OH even remarked how much better than shop bought they were!!!    Tim, do you microwave or boil them?