sweetcorn, how do you grow yours?

[Alice]

I start my sweetcorn (Swift) in pots, early - like now - and keep it indoors until it can go out in May to give it the longest growing season I can and make sure it has time to ripen. It doesn't get too big quickly.
And Snadgers right about eating it raw - just delicious.

[Alice]

Amanda, if you get 64 corn plants into a 4' x 4' bed I'm coming up to see the miracle And you better give them about a foot of manure as well as they are pretty greedy plants

[amandaandherveg]

Amanda, if you get 64 corn plants into a 4' x 4' bed I'm coming up to see the miracle And you better give them about a foot of manure as well as they are pretty greedy plants

I hope to be conducting tours in August.

How many would you suggest in the raised bed?

[Alice]

If I was planting that bed Amanda I would put in 16 and think I was packing it . But maybe you'll get advances on that

[selfraising]

I would agree with Alice 16 max, though would probably put 12 in myself. Good luck though Amanda, keep us posted, we might all be proven wrong!

[vonbarky]

4 corn to a foot works pretty well

I use the squarefoot method, although being an American transplant in Italy I use 30cm instead of a foot. Last year I planted Ovation F1 and ButterScotch F1, 4 plants every 30cm square, and harvested at least 1 cob for every stalk, and with probably 15-25% of the plants I harvested 2 cobs of sweetcorn per stalk.

It's not a perfect picture, but you can see some of the stalks here, and some of the harvest here.

I fertilized about once every 3 weeks to a month. I would highly recommend growing them for a few weeks and transplanting them in. I direct sowed some as a succession sowing later and didn't have as much success with them partially because they weren't as consistant on their maturity times, which hurt the fill out of the cobs because they didn't get pollinated.

I've actually planted sweetcorn much closer than every 6 inches when I had my market garden in Southern California, but you really have to feed the corn very well, and keep on the watering.

[Alice]

Welcome to the Vine Vonbarky. That's a great looking place you have there - and great looking corn. It will give Amanda something to think about. She might be going for another packet of seeds yet.

[vonbarky]

Thanks for the welcome Alice... I've already been getting tons of good information from the Alliums thread, as that is all new to me this year. I hope I can also help contribute some here and there as well

[selfraising]

Yes, a warm welcome from me too vonbarky. Your garden looks lovely! No doubt the extra warmth you get over there is very beneficial!

[Alan Farmer]

I grew 3 sisters last year, getting the corn in first, grown in plastic pots, then planted some squash plants between the rows, and finally climbing french beans at the foot and each side of each corn plant. Plenty of water, compost to mulch, and sunshine needed. In a bad summer, I got reasonable results.

[Twinkle]

I'm doing swift, miracle and supersweet this year.

I did the 3 sisters a couple of years ago and the beans failed miserably... tempted to have another go this year.

My question though - my corn was dismal during last year's wet summer - never ripened and just rotted. I've space in my tunnel so was planning a block in there, underplanted with courgettes
Anyone grown corn under plastic ??

To cook them, I leave a couple of layers of green on the cobs and microwave them for 4-5 minutes, peel back the leaves and add loads of butter and black pepper... chin-wiping-tastic

[FionaH]

Question, are sweetcorn seedlings frost hardy? I would like to start some off indoors and then move them to an unheated GH already got far too many tender stuff that has to stay indoors

[amandaandherveg]

That's my plan FionaH. I sowed my sweetcorn today into paper pots to get them started then hopefully it will be mild enough next month to transfer them to the GH.

I counted the seeds again and there were 33 in the packet, so I've decided to go for a block of 5 x 5 in my raised bed.

[FionaH]

Cheers Amanda I will plant some next week when I have made some more space. So many seeds so few windowsills

[faerieprincess]

Has anyone tried peas instead of beans in the 3 sisters? I was thinking I would try Butternut Squash and Peas instead of courgettes and beans.