Sweetcorn - should it be ready by now??

[DLittlewood]

I know i'm being impatient, but I have lots of sweetcorn which just doesn't seem to be ripening at all.

I hand pollenated to make sure they did well and the tassells have mainly dried up now and gone brown but the kernels don't seem to be swelling.

Ive peeled one back to have a check and the kernels are similar to baby sweetcorn - quite flat and not plumping up at all.

Ive been watering regularly and have given a liquid feed every 2/3 weeks.

Am I just being impatient or am I doing something wrong?

Thanks for any avice you can give
Dena

[rustylady]

Is it growing in the open ground, or in containers?

[Two_Sheds]

What variety, and how has your weather been?

(mine have just finished; Conqueror; lots and lots of rain)

[DLittlewood]

They are in the ground. I have 10 stalks in a 6'x5' bed in the garden.

The weather has been mixed, quite dry & sunny for the last couple of weeks so ive been watering 2/3 times a week( a full can each time). but weve had some heavy rain over this last week so ive not bothered.

Not sure of the variety, they were from B&Q.

thanks for your help
Dena

[rustylady]

Sounds like poor pollination. I've had trouble with mine this year. Something's been eating the silks (the bit that sticks out of the cob - the tassels are the flower bit at the top of the plant). I've had to resort to cutting off the undeveloped kernels at the top and just cooking the bottom half or so of the cob.

[Pumpkin Becki]

Hi Dena, did you grow your sweetcorn plants in one row, or did you do a block?

Being wind pollinated, you should get better pollination when you grow in a block (for example 9 plants in three rows of three). Having said that, I planted mine in a block, but the results have been poor this year too.

[Two_Sheds]

My Northern Extra Early were pitiful: 2 foot tall with only partial germination. My Conqueror were superb as always: 5ft tall with full cobs.
Earwigs have been using them as hotels though, and causing a bit of rot near the silks.

[DLittlewood]

Thanks for the advice. I did plant in blocks and tried to assist the pollination but they seem to have beaten me again!

I grew some last year which did poorly although I did manage at least 3 cobs which is more than this year! I might give it 1 more try next year and look for an eary variety or try the conqueror variety suggested by two sheds.

As for this years im going to leave them and keep checking till the end of this month but I might pick some of the small ones and see if they are ok to stirfry

cheers Dena

[LolaLou]

Just for my two-pennies-worth, my dad has a plot up in North Yorkshire and his corns are far from ready yet. Last year he was picking corns a good month earlier. Hope yours pull through

[peanut]

I grew Lark this year and they've been rubbish....between 1ft and 4ft high...2 reasonable cobs off two plants....the rest haven't really developed at all.

[Mrs Dobby]

I'd have to say the sweetcorn is definitely taking its time to ripen, but we managed to get some in the pot for tonights tea!

[gojiberry]

I grew corn this year for the first time in about ten years. I had a block of 6X4 and it has done very well. Looking around the plots I find that most people don't give corn enough room. I planted mine 2' apart in all directions, most of the plants have given me 3 cobs.

Ian

[chris]

I noticed the tips of my cobs weren't (what I guess is pollinated) full of corn - they were more greeny, and some of them not fulled up as individual corn.. Would this be due to the pollination?

Looked similar to Mrs Dobbies tip of her right hand cob!

[DLittlewood]

Oh Mrs Dobby, now I am so jealous!!!!! Come on sweetcorn, i'm not giving up on you yet! Dena

[Mrs Dobby]

Hi Dena, glad you like them! We've got a fair few more to come yet, but they arent ripe yet!

We dont do anything special with growing sweetcorn, they are grown from seed, I usually try at least 3 or 4 varieties, planting the whole packet into modules in a propogator until they've germinated, usually in April. Then they are moved to the backyard greenhouse for a few weeks, then hardened off ready for planting in late May. We tend to plant them in blocks, with 12 to 18" between them in each direction, underplanted wiht squashes and sweetcorn, and with a few sunflowers planted too (to distract the local squirrels from the sweetcorn!), as per the picture below!



Hope this helps spur you on to give sweetcorn a further go, they are such a fabulous plant and although results arent always as good as we'd hope, definitely a firm favourite!

We had a phone call last night from a friend who we'd given a cob to (at the local gardeners presentation evening, we did a tray (didnt win) and took 3 of our sweetcorn to go on it, we brought 2 home (the 2 in the pot picture) and gave the 3rd to a friend), who rang just to tell us how good the sweetcorn was, he was mightily impressed indeed!