It went well, despite the drought.
My post from 5th May
On Monday morning I noticed some of the sweetcorn kernels had germinated and took the tray out of the plastic bag it had been in since sowing them in the peat pots last week. They grew an inch before taking this photo Monday evening and they've grown another inch since. They're on the living room window sill, better move them out to the greenhouse later today....... 33 out of 36 germinated. Looking hopeful for delicious sweetcorn cobs later in the year.
This is how they were looking on the 5th July
By the end of July
The male parts of the plants were showing off
While the female cobs were hiding and just starting to appear and swell.
I ate my first delicious corn-cob on the 19th August..........just So Good! Then ate them as they were ready right up to the middle of September. I even gave a few away when there were several ready all at once.
Almost the last of them.
They were all a good size, one or two had been attacked by critters that had made a few kernels go brown and a few didn't come to anything but still lots to eat.
I've cleared the bed and all the leaves have gone in my compost bin, and stalks and roots, once I'd shaken off all the dirt, have gone in the council garden waste bin. Sweetcorn are always quite tough to dig out - they have big roots.
Looked in my new book "A Potted History of Vegetables.........
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| Illustration dating from the C18 copied from the book |
I expect everyone in the US knows that it's a native of the Americas and has been grown for centuries there although over here it was mainly something that was bought in a can until fairly recently! There were adverts for "The Jolly Green Giant" cans of Sweetcorn on TV when I was young. Did my Mum buy tins of sweetcorn? I can't remember but doubt it. We never ate corn cobs until growing them ourselves in the 90's on the smallholding. The children loved nibbling their way round a whole cob. I used to make pop-corn for them too sometimes and we had a pop-corn maker for a while until I think son took it off to uni.
Apparently, to begin with, the yellow varieties were used only as cattle feed and white were preferred for the table.
It's still grown for animal feed and also used around here as a cover/food crop for farms that rear pheasants for shoots.
Brother-in-Law Andrew was round yesterday kindly putting a new tube in the bike tyre for me and he said he's still got some cobs on his plants that have come late and all at once and if I go round at the weekend I can help myself to a couple - lovely.
Back Soon
Sue
Hooray for corn on the cob, the trinity of native Americans. In the same hole plant one corn seed, one squash seed, one bean seed. The bean grows up the corn stalk, the squash shades the earth. I think it's call Three Sisters.
ReplyDeleteMmmm, hot corn on the cob with a sprinkle of salt and pepper and hot melted butter dribbling down the chin! Yum :)
ReplyDeleteIt's a messy thing to eat for sure!
DeleteI ate my first sweetcorn in the 60s - a farmer friend started growing it as animal feed, and gave us a few cobs saying "it's a popular vegetable in the USA". I remember the Green Giant ads too [ho ho ho!]
ReplyDeleteMy Mum would never have tried anything 'foreign'!
DeleteThey look delicious, I'm inspired to have a go myself now. Did you get all 33 plants in that bed, they look very snug. Can you say how big the bed is please?
ReplyDeleteThey like to be close but mine are much TOO close. I squeezed them into the space I had available. I also had sown 2 seeds in each peat pot just in case and that made them even closer! What with that and the lack of rain I might have got fewer cobs than I should have done
DeleteVery good crop, better than your beans I believe.
ReplyDeleteMuch better than the beans!
DeleteYou can freeze corn. Just pop the whole cob in as they are, wrapped of course. Either defrost and cook or cook from frozen just giving it longer.
ReplyDeleteI'm not keen on freezing the whol cob - sometimes makes them a little tough. I used to take the kernels of and blanch and freeze but that's a very messy job
DeleteThose cobs look so good to eat-shop bought ones often disappoint and it’s put me off buying them. My niece as a small child would put half in each hand and bite from either end-kept her quiet for ages before you had to start the fight to clean her up. Happy days-she’s now 31! Catriona
ReplyDeleteOne of those veg that are best picked and cooked straight away
DeleteWe had a very good crop this year. The kernels can begin to dry out and become starchy if left too long without picking, so yesterday I picked the remaining cobs and we have frozen them as Christina suggests. Not tried that before.
ReplyDeleteI used to freeze the whole cobs but they sometimes went a bit tough, now I try and eat as many as poss while they are just right
DeleteYou can have my share! I bet they taste 100 times better freshly home grown though.
ReplyDeleteThey really need to be home grown
DeleteYou should be well pleased with yourself. Those cobs look really good. If I lived nearer, I'd be taking the stalks off your hands for autumnal decorating!
ReplyDeleteThe stalks are really tough . I believe they used to make dolls out of the dried leaves
DeleteWell done :-)
ReplyDeleteA few years since I grew sweetcorn, perhaps I will make the effort next season? There is absolutely nothing as marvellous as a cob which was not picked until the water was boiling!
They were delicious, well worth the growing
DeleteVery well done I didn't get any corn this year I missed it.
ReplyDeleteCathy
They look beautiful. I can only eat 1/2-1 ear once in awhile and my husband 2 so I cook a few and when done I cut the kernels off the cob and freeze for winter..
ReplyDeleteI got greedy and sometimes ate 2 at a time!
DeleteI've never thought to sprout my corn inside, but I think that I'm going to do so this spring. I replanted twice this year. Some small critter (probably crows, maybe a chipmunk or mouse) came over the fence and plucked out a lot of seeds. I replanted beans, peas, and corn. Very frustrating, esp when the corn did not amount to much.
ReplyDeleteSomeone told us once not to dig the roots out, just cut off the stalks. The roots are all good stuff for the soil and by next spring they will be pretty much gone anyway. We grew autumn sown broad beans after corn and there was never a hint of corn by the time we pulled the beans out.
ReplyDeleteI have farm land where corn is planted. It is so different than when I was a child. Back then one could walk between the rows as they were planted several inches apart. Also the plants were sometimes six feet tall and planted several inches apart. Now the plants have been bred to be much shorter so that the energy of the plant does not go into the stalk but into the fruit of the plant, ie., the corn itself. Planting the seeds closer together means the plants withstand high winds as they support one another and do not blow over. Of course all the harvesting is done by machine as opposed to the old days of men shucking the corn cobs from the upright plants as they walked between the rows and throwing them into the wagons. Field corn is not really very tasty, so "sweet" corn is grown for human consumption. This is perhaps far more than you had wanted to know about corn growing in America.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading Joanne's comments about the 3 sisters method of planting - I've recently seen that done in Picton Castle Gardens - it was working well, the beans scrambling up the sweet corn plants and the butternut squash using the bare soil in between the rows. I might try it next year.
ReplyDeleteAlison in Wales x
I made my first ever sweetcorn fritters this week. Love a corn on the cob with real butter. Arilx
ReplyDeleteWe've been getting corn from a local farm store. We've got 2 to eat a 2 more to cut up and then pit into freezer. Then it's put into soup and chili. I remember Jolly Green Giant ...hohoho! Green Giant...on advertisement years ago.
ReplyDelete