Anyone grown sweetcorn before?

I thought I'd have a go at it this year and the plants are looking pretty good (they have to be some of the fastest growing plants I have seen)

They have started to develop what appears to be flower buds, which look funnily enough like corn. Anyone any idea when I can expect these to flower and the cobs start to develop?

(they're early xtra sweet variety)

Here's some pics


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sorry i know nothing on this but.... WOW id never thought to grow sweetcorn, definatley gonna give it a go next year..

nice one, hope all goes well 4 u

cheers m8,

I never though of growing them too - just saw the seed packet in the garden center and thought - why not!

They're great looking plant too IMHO, really enjoyed watching them grow (fast )

Apparently the taste of fresh sweetcorn is second to none too, as they start to convert sugar into starch the moment they're picked - here's hoping it works

I'll keep you posted with progress

ESG

my corn has suffered from the dog.... i think all it can see is a lampost ... still the neibour will love it im sure .. not as ready as that mind but then again might just b stunted...

Hiya ESG

you're right, they're the flowers of the corn plants

what'll happen is the whole plant will grow up and they'll grow up and open out over the next week or few days, then the pollen crosses from one to the next and the cobs will appear a few days after about 1/3 to 1/2 way up each plant stem at one of the nodes. The cobs won't be ready for about 4-6wks afer that though.

You can cup your up-turned hand around each flower, holding the stem between those fingers and shake off pollen into the palm of your hand then sprinkle on other plants flowers to ensure even pollination.

Feed your plants a couple times a week and you'll see some amazing growth. Normally I only get one cob per plant but you can get two.

Hope it helps, homegrown corn is really tasty

nice plants m8, i had 3 littleuns on the go but they didn't survive the wind the other night, took out me bloody gazebo legs too

still lessons learned for next year.

enjoy m8

I got 8 sweetcorn plants on the go atm, love growing them.....

Really easy to grow as long as the summer is a good un, love thier feed as BB has said.....

And BB you should be getting 3 or 4 cobs per plant......

RAZ

ooh sweetcorn, now thats a good idea...

One of our best looking crops this year..... I have 9 planted in a square - flowering like mad....


Nice tip for pollination BB....


Laz

Thanks for all the replies guys - didn't realise there were so many sweetcorn growers out there! If all goes well I can see me growing these every summer - I just really like the look of 'em, and I have never seen anything grow so quick.

Definatley going to try BB's pollination technique too.

I'll post more pictures as the cobs start to develop

ESG

An even easier way to make sure of pollination is to just shake the top of the plant when you see hairs appear from the sides of plant......

RAZ

yeeaahh! I just been in the garden and took photos of my sweetcorn. Not as big as yours though cos i cant be doing with fussing over my plants - either they grow or they dont. Nature didnt create humans to grow her veg for her did she, no. So they should survive without me. Im a harsh veg grower me. Only the strong survive.


This is my first year growing sweetcorn and one of the few things I got to grow from seed. All together theres 4 or 5 - two smaller than the rest.


Mine must be different variety - some kind of Feline Growth Hormone on mine.
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They're certainly looking good though Daisy, flowers coming on nice

I got to admit to cheating little....I started mine early under lights

Just a couple of fluros early on after sprouting, seemed to do the trick as I was able to sow them earlier than if they had gone straight outside

ahh clever pants you eh??

I was v v excitabe when I first saw the flowering parts!!!

Kelvedon Glory

if my babies get to that stage Im gonna SOOOO excited..
good luck - and I wanna see a piccie of the finished article, drizzled in butter - corn porn

corn porn !

Amazing plants BB.

Ive just noticed some side shoots at the nodes on my plants (must have only appeared in the last day or two) - looks like where the cobs are going to grow

The white power is my attempt to get rid of the earwigs

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Mmmmmmm, first sweetcorn this year



It was tasty and there's loads more cobs to come

Looking good BB, bet they tasted nice too

How do you tell when they're ready to pick, because the cobs on mine look real big now

They were very tasty and sweet ESG

You want to peel back one or two of the sheath leaves and check the kernels, squeeze one and see what consistency the milky juice is. When they're ripe they should be a thicker, creamy way when squished but not too thick

drooool.. Mmmmm ...

not sure its ready yet...or if this is as far as its gonna get.

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Patience Grasshopper........

Not ready yet. Those hairs will go brown before they are ready.

the hairs on the outside of the cob have all gone brown already... thats why I thought it was ready. now Ive opened it up a bit I suspect it may be suseptible to damage - have wrapped em in the leafy bits again to try and reduce any damage.

will give em a good water and feed again tonight.

When the large majority of tassles have turned brownish and are withering you can check the kernels inside, Daisy. Now the cob might not have fully filled out, so when you peel back a couple of the sheaf leaves, check down the length of the cob and see where the kernels have filled upto.

That's immature cob you got there Daisy, but if you check further down, are there any filled-out kernels at all? If not, just do as you said and wrap it back up again and check in a week or so but if your cobs are only like half-full but ripe, just cut off the immature part that hasn't filled out and munch the rest

thanks for the hints... !!

According to advice from Mr & Mrs Layne.... corn on the cob has a shelf life of about 3.5 mins ....so I'm off down the allotment while Mrs L gets the water on the boil...



Laz

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Well worth all the effort.... only moments later......[attachmentid=51429]


Very tasty.....


Laz

sweeet

two of ours being roasted on an open fire
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excellent,

gotta love pic's of homegrown sweetcorn

I tried Swift this year, I will be growing it again, it has to be one of the nicest I have ever tried.

Laz that looks like it had gone a little starchy, I prefer them take a little earlier I think, but its all down to taste, my friend likes them when they are practically flowery.

Thanks Ot.... The taste was ok.... but a little sweeter would have been nice....

I have 9 plants but as far as I can tell none of the other cobs are ripe yet.... I suspect this is down to the 55deg. latitude.... maybe I'm a little far north for a decent crop...

I notice some of the corn looked a little sort of 'de-hydrated' - I thought that might be because I left them too long....

Now I'm seriously confused..


Laz

When they start to wrinkle its because the sugars are turning to starch, ie they should have been picked earlier.

When is the last frost in yoyr area Laz?

The last frost? not sure - we haven't had anything like a severe frost as yet...


would a frost - swweten the product as with sprouts?

In your experience ot,what sort of window do you normally have for harvest?


Laz

Last frost in the spring was what I was asking about Laz. ie when its safe to put toms out, if you can start your corn off under cover about 3 weeks before that, with an early var like swift you should start cropping last half of august.

Its way to late with corn now, get them out, the colder it gets the more flowery the corn will get.

Thank OT.... I will pull the rest then...

They were put out late May (I think).... I have to confess tho - they were stock plants from a garden centre - not from seed...

Maybe I'll seek out some swift for next year - as I obviously don't have an early var.


Thanks again for the advice...

Laz

my dog used mine as a wee post..... some fencing in order this year

My daughter grabbed a pack of seeds from the garden centre a few weeks back, and we have started them indoors to transplant when the frosts finish. The trouble is, they are all poking through the soil already about 2 inches.
Christ knows how big they will be when we finally evict them to the garden, or whether this method will work.
Any ideas? One thing for sure is they do grow damn quick, but they have been getting a blast of fluoro and sodium when I can remember to put then in my growroom.

Anybody ever grown mj hidden in a field of corn/maze as an outdoor grow? I've been thinking about it as the plants grow up to 6 to 7 ft are fast growing and not harvested until october. If planted only 10 ft from the edge of the field they will be invisible except from the air

worth a thought.

Well the thing that springs to mind for me is what does commercial sweetcorn get sprayed with and when? Because I am sure that would be a time for it to be potentially noticed and even worse sprayed with what? Prolly stuff you wouldn't want to be smoking on your buds

Unless you could find an organic farm

EO

It was my first time growing sweet corn last year - and I was amazed by the results.

Home grown has the sweetest taste, nothing like the sweetcorn you buy in the shops... which in comparison is rubbish (sounds familiar )

Going to start mine (early xtra sweet f1) in a couple of weeks (under me 200w envirolite )

good luck with your grow and let us know how it progresses

ESG

I grow sweetcorn every year, in part because I love it fresh, picked and inthe pot within 2 mins and partly to provide a cover for my herb plants. I had six 5' plants planted in a block behind a sweetcorn screen last year and unless you were really looking you couldn't see them.

I'm growing a new vareity (for me anyway) this year "Lark". Good luck to all the sweetcorn growers say I.

i harvested mine today and was eating them less than 30 mins later smothered with butter, a light dusting of chilli powder and some salt.

was my first grow and they were beautiful. sweet and tasty, best i've ever tasted. def doing another corn grow next year, defo!

e2a: they make great temporary fencing/screening if you need it, and i got 3-4 cobs on each plant.

Nice one Simple, glad you had a good'n....they're lovely fresh off the plant aren't they?

Mine have been crap this year

Not sure of the reasons, a few things could be the problem - I think I planted too late, rubbish weather & I may have over fertilised the beds (two bags of organic manure dug in) .... also I could have damaged the roots when I transplanted them (other than that I can't imagine what the problem was )

So all ways around a bit of a disater

They've only just started to develop male flowers, so there's no way I'm going to get anything.... still there's always next year.... onwards and upwards


(My tomatoes did really well though )

just thought id let you know i also have the same pasta plates and im most pleased with them, thats it..

our sweet corns been bad this year, again..

maybe its the strain but ours are really short and just look like they didn't have a good go at it, small dryish looking corn parcels..

Aye i've grown some this year and they dont look too much cop either. maybe the great summer we had! still gonna eat the buggers though. gonna give em as much time as possible.