Sweetcorn

[Millymollymandy]

They look lovely! Yeah OK, so you win - you've got sweetcorn and thousands of parsnips vs. my potimarrons and 3 parsnips..........

[chadspad]

Ah but we are the same on the pond, the white duck, the bench and the same chicken - lets call it a draw

[the.fee.fairy]

They are pretty sweetcorn!

mine are still about 2ft tall, and they're trying to form cobs. I'll leave them though, because i#m not sure which ones are the mini ones...i forgot to put the labels out with the plants...

[godfreyrob]

I sowed mine early (heated propagator & greenhouse) and then planted them out under cloches. They have grown nice and tall (with some having side shoots) but the pollination is poor - quite big cobs but only half the kernals have swollen. They were planted in a block and were in the open at pollination time. Lovely taste but dissapointing quantity!

I reckon the cold wet weather did for the pollen - maybe it was washed off the male flowers rather than being spread in the wind?

[chadspad]

I have had exactly the same problem Godfreyrob. I kept leaving the cobs thinking they hadnt ripened properly now theyre too hard to eat! I always feel so disappointed when the season is over, something hasnt grown properly & Ive gotta wait all that time before being able to do it again!

[red]

my sweetcorn asre pathetic... the cobs are very small and they still have not ripened. we were sick of sweetcorn by this time last year!

peeked at one - there are kernels but still white. so not yet. have to have about 3 each to make it worth while. i did plant 70 though

[Millymollymandy]

My 2nd sowing (all three of them!!! ) are doing better than the first lot, but still small compared with last year. Then I have my 3rd sowing coming along but they are of a different variety because I ran out of seeds.

[chadspad]

Was the third sowing an experiment M3 or were they still in the suggested date?

[Millymollymandy]

It's a new packet - well, bought in UK last year - that I was going to sow next year.

So not an experiment, just done out of desperation and fear of no sweetcorn to eat!

[red]

well we are harvesting sweetcorn now - but they are half size. but still good - i planted too packets - about 70 in all! and the second lot are further behind but looking much better.. so perhaps it was all down to timing and the funny weather we had back a bit

[Peggy Sue]

Hope someone is still watching this topic who can help. My OH planted minipop this year. He says the corn is mini corn, but when we picked small ones they didn't seem ripe, so I let them grow a bit, and they still don't seem ripe and they are between baby corn size and full cob size now. How will I know when they are ripe? Mind you they taste OK anyway

[the.fee.fairy]

I don't know, but i'd appreciate the answer too - i've also sown minipop.

Something (i suspect its a mouse) has eaten half of one of my cobs!

[Millymollymandy]

Finally had some corn on the cob yesterday - they were only small and could still do with another week of warmth and sunshine but that seems a bit unlikely now!

Thankfully the 3rd sowing came good and there's 2 more larger cobs and about 6 smaller ones still on the plants.

[red]

yeh my second sowing came good too - proper large cobs
just finished them couple of days ago -

[Cheezy]

My first go at corn using the 3 sister planing, looks like a disaster. 1st sowing only one came up (out of 10), second sowing 6 out of 10. THese haven't ripened and I suspect they wont.. Still will try again in the 3 sisters thing again next year. m' pumpkin is huge in the 3 sisters, but only one bean came up, and m'squash has only just decided to put on fruit!....been a crap year.