Allotments 4 All

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.



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.