Thrilled with my sweetcorn

[Greenleaves]

Just popped over the plot after getting back from holiday and picked 27 cobs off 24 plants. All 95% full and a very good size. First year of growing Swift but certainly on the list for next year.

no prizes for guessing whats on the menu tonight!

[Florence Fennel]

Well done Gl. I got a cob from every plant, medium sized, but the earwigs got there before me so I only got a small harvest. I don't like sweetcorn anyway, but it was a challenge to grow it for the first time and my Golden Girls love it so it'll not go to waste

[Greenleaves]

Thanks Flo

[Noosner]

Well done GL, sounds as if it couldn't have gone better. A nice homecoming for you!

[Kristen]

We pick-and-cook immediately (if we were only an ounce more fanatical we would take the pan of boiling water TO the plot!). Supersweet varieties, like Swift, are better than old heirloom varieties, but even so when they are harvested the sugar starts turning to starch; this makes fresh sweetcorn our most popular vegetable with BBQ summer guests as the couple of days it takes the Supermarket to get the crop from Field to Store and then to Customer's plate cannot match me walking to the plot and picking them

So I'm a little bothered that you have harvested en masse ... although I hear of plenty of folk who harvest & freeze, and I think if that is done quickly too then the result is also excellent.

Perhaps folk will tell me I'm being obsessional and stored supersweet varieties are fine?

Tell you what: I'll pick some cobs today, stick them in the fridge, and pick some more mid week and see if the family can tell the difference ...

By the by, I've grown Swift for 5 years or more. This year my preferred supplier didn't have any seed so I bought Lark instead. I had always understood that the two were much of a muchness, but the Lark has carried 2 and 3 cobs on the plant, and I have only ever got 1 (occasional one-and-a-bit) on the Swift plants in the past, so assuming this is not a fluke I am going to switch to Lark in future seasons.

[Martin H]

Well done Kristen, sounds like you've got it nailed. I'll be interested to see how your experiment goes with the 3-day-old vs fresh taste test!

I grew a field-pollinated type "Double Standard" this year, having previously grown only modern F1 types. There were 2 differences:
- they have been ripening over a longer period (good)
- although very tasty, they weren't as sweet as the likes of "Swift" (less good).

Does anyone know of a super-sweet variety that comes true from saved seed?

[Greenleaves]

I understand your approach Kristin and I still have 24 plants to harvest which will be picked and eaten within the hour. The ones harvested yesterday were de kerneled and frozen within 90 minutes and in years past served me well. You are right that they loose some of their sweetness but still head and shoulders above anything you can by from the supermarkets.

Good luck with your experiment

[Kristen]

The ones harvested yesterday were de kerneled and frozen within 90 minutes and in years past served me well

That's a relief to hear

Does anyone know of a super-sweet variety that comes true from saved seed?

I am doubting it ... there are two issues in play here, to the best of my knowledge.

Varieties bred to be short / dwarf - they start producing silks and tassels at about chest-height, whereas old fashioned sweet corn would carry on growing to 2M or so. Upside is that this all happens in a short Summer, like the UK, downside is that you don't get many cobs-per-plant - so it becomes a luxury crop, spacewise, rather than a high value return crop. I'm OK with that as I have plenty of space, not so good for Square Foot Gardeners

Second is the genetics that have gone into breeding supersweet varieties

I'm doubting that you can get all that packaged up in anything other than an F1

Real Seeds sell, for example, Special Swiss Sweetcorn which is said to be supersweet (and open pollinated), so might be worth a try?

SweetCorn Seed

Care is needed with Sweetcorn cross-pollinating. For sure if you want to keep your own seed, but even for eating as differing varieties cross pollinating can create individual corns, within the cob, that are hard. (I don't believe the marketing blurb that This and That variety can be planted together, I have read of people doing that and still being disappointed with the inconsistency of resulting cobs) If growing different varieties it is important to make sure that sowing is staggered so that they shed pollen at different times or are widely separated (difficult, given that they are wind pollinated). Perhaps snap the tassels off when they are done pollinating to prevent any occasional pollen being shed later. If your plot neighbours are growing sweetcorn then ideally club together to buy seed of the same variety - Moles Seed can be good value for that sort of bulk purchase

Moles Seeds - Conventional vegetables: Sweetcorn

[Farmer_Gyles]

My entire crop of sweetcorn this year
45 sown in first batch, 30 sown in 2nd batch

[Bill HH]

I pick mine, clean them and freeze without blanching all within 30 minutes, the results are perfect.

[Nannysally99]

Same for us Bill, frozen within 10 mins, because we only did a few at a time,. Have eaten quite a few if the frozen ones, gorgeous