Allotments 4 All

My sweetcorns (Northern Extra Sweet) are only about 2 foot high. ::)

Mrbones, I hope you'll have a good crop and enjoy your first home-grown corns. :)

re my sweetcorn with 5 cobs looked again there is 6 the seed is kings F1 tasty gold. yes you are right jeannine it is better to have 1 good one then loads which come to nothing and i expect this to happen here. i tried to take a pic but the battery,s had gone flat :'( it is because it,s branched out at the base
i am lucky to get i what with pests eating them so i am trying a big bottle over the cob just as it starts to ripen. i,ll let you know what happens
marg

We had our first cobs last night.  Absolute rubbish.

The tassels on the cobs were turning brown, so we thought the corns would be set. 

I think the problem we had was that when the male pollen bearing parts of the plant were growing, they were wet through, so no powdery pollen to fertisilse the cobs.

In our book, another casualty of this dreadful year!!

valmarg

Still hopeful

Those look great, cleo!

Infinitely better than mine, which gave up after being inundated.

managed to get a picy and i do know most of them will come to nothing also my bottle protection experiment marg

I would be interested to know which animals the the bottle protection is supposed to stop. You would need to allow the cobs to get pollinated before you put them on.

Marg, you could get mildew with this method, the cobs need air and there is a lot of condensation there.Thought I had better share that with you. XX Jeannine

yes jeannine those ones did have condensation i started putting holes in later ones and need to do those (experiments often have teething troubles)
real food yes i only put them on the swollen cobs as for 3 years i have had something opening the end and eating them when they ripen, netting them makes no difference so i rule out birds. as my plot is in a rural area near woods and a nature reserve who knows
i havn,t covered them all so i will be able to compare
marg

Quote from: theothermarg on August 08, 2007, 20:14:18
I only put them on the swollen cobs as for 3 years i have had something opening the end and eating them when they ripen,
marg

I think your culprits could be american grey tree rats, or even Roland ratty rats!!

valmarg

I've just been down to my lottie to water the stuff in the gh and my sweetcorn has flowers and cobs!!!  You have no idea how pleased I am with this because I was about to pull the lot up and burn them!

you took the  words off my keyboard, susie-had exactly the same experience this morning on my sweetcorn- yippee!

I've grown swetcorn for the 1st time this year - only 9 plants in my garden.

I am averaging 3 healthy looking cobs per plant (Incredible F1)

Not bad for the north east, although they do sit in a sunny SW

location and I started them off quite early in heat.

Debs ;D

moost of ours were like that a couple of weeks ago but now full cobs forming yum yum

I would still have the bottles off Marg until all the tassles on anyone cob are brown... or you may only have partial pollination...
:-\

mmm yes it,s a matter of timing isn,t it  i havn,t put bottles on many . one was already looking picked at. i,v app 30 plants there so hopfullt one way or another i,ll get one or two eatable ones
marg

hi,
my cobs were getting eaten by rats or volves or something so i did as you with bottles last year and it was a disaster...i thought they had all been pollinated first but when i removed the bottles they had barely any kernels. hope yours fare better!
i'll be awaiting the results...

I think the first cobs on mine are ready to pick and the second lot on each stalk are not far behind.  The second row were planted a few weeks later and are taller and already forming good cobs with silks etc.  Now the ones at the allotment are useless!  I bought them from the garden centre as small plants and hoped they'd catch up quickly.  Not a chance!  They are still only about a foot high - if that!  :(

Thank goodness the ones in the garden have done okay.  Fingers crossed the cobs are good when I pick them - I'll keep you posted! ;D

mmm i took everyones advise and removed a lot of the bottles. i,v made holes in all of them so the ones i have left on are dryer the trick is catching them just before they are ripe enough to get munched by anon creature. time will tell it,s me v them war
marg