Sweetcorn

[Barbara'nTom]

Planted loads and 5 have germinated. Everything else going great guns for a three sisters bed but only 7 sweetcorn plants so far!!

Sweetcorn in small pots in the spare room with some in the propagator which doesn't seem to ensure better propogation.

Am thinking it may just have to be a two sisters bed!

Should I risk planting the sweetcorn into the ground direct?

[Alice]

How long is it since you planted the sweetcorn ? I planted Swift and Minipop. Germination was 100 % . Planted on the 5th May but only 3" high now. Maybe that's not too bad as the weather has been cool but I was expecting them to be bigger. I was planning a 3 sisters method but I can't see how the corn is going to support the beans as they have just germinated and are way taller than the corn. I hope your corn will appear. I just planted mine in an unheated greenhouse and left it there.

[Bex]

Hi BnT, Welcome to the vine.

My beans too have overtaken the corn, not sure how this is going to work now. I could grow these beans up a frame and try sowing some more for growing with the corn I suppose.

My sweetcorn were in modules on a window cill no extra heat supplied. They germinated ok but seem very slow.

[Jo.T]

I've just transplanted some sweetcorm into ground and seem to have died over night so nothing will be supported by them!

[rustylady]

My sweetcorn and also brassica germination has been absolutely pathetic this year. Bought fresh sweetcorn seed and results no better. Marrows, squashes, tomatoes and beans have all germinated fine. Anyone got any ideas why, or had the same problem?

[Heidi]

My initial sweetcorn germination was pretty bad, less than 50% so went out and bought some ready-grown plants, and then sowed some more seeds just in case, and of course then got 100% germination! So now have ALOT of sweetcorn plants.

As for the beans - we've got the same problem - ours are much to big for the sweetcorn so we've put in canes to support them and are hoping once the sweetcorn takes off we can entwine the beans round them and remove the canes - will have to see!

[Waffler]

I had a good germination rate from my sweetcorn - about 95%. Alas, they were mostly grown for my Dad and a friend, leaving me only 3!! I intend to get some more sown though for my 3 sisters bed, which I then intend to grow dwarf beans up, which haven't yet been sown either.

[TEB]

I did the same and while my sweetcorn is about 18" - 24" high, my beans are in plugs and will probably disturb the roots of the sweetcorn if I planted the beans now and as the beans are there to provide nitrogn and I imagine need to be quite close I think I will put the beans elswehere and sow a new crop directly by the corn - oh well cannot have to many beans.

[Heidi]

Height wise my sweetcorn plants are short but the climbing french beans are huge. Do you thnk that maybe a bean (or two) should have been planted next to the sweetcorn plant rather than raising the beans as plants first?

We've been wondering the same thing.

Maybe next year, set the corn of a month or so before the beans to give them a head start.

Even the bought sweetcorn plants haven't caught up with the beans as of yet.

[kethry]

i've not grown the three sisters myself, but i do read the blog of someone who has, in the past... apparently the three sisters is only any good if you want the sweetcorn/beans for drying (as the indians would've done) as the beans wind around the sweetcorn cobs themselves and it makes it very difficult to get at the sweetcorn cobs without breaking the bean stems. The info came from lilymarlene's blog, and i would do a direct link but the posting is half way down the page and i don't know how to do a direct link to a specific post in that way. (apologies in advance to Lily, if you read this!):

"I have been asked to enlarge on my findings on the Three Sister's Method as championed by Carol Klein on her Veg gardening programme and now on Gardeners' World.

I first read about this method some years ago and always wanted to try it. When we moved here I had my chance...the summer before last. I used sweetcorn, courgettes and climbing French beans. Everything grew beautifully....we had lots of courgettes...two cobs on most of the sweetcorn....and healthy looking bean plants with plenty of flowers. Then it came to harvest. No problem with the courgettes, the beans were not ready, but the sweetcorn were. But we couldn't get at them without unwinding the bean vines from the cobs. This was a real pain.....every cob we wanted was bound tightly by vines. I ended up snapping the bean stems unintentionally. We got almost no beans from this method.

When Carol Klein showed this on her Veg programme I was almost screaming at the telly. Had she tried it herself? Then I found her new book has a comment on this method )page 194). She describes the method, attributing it to the Native American Indians, but ends up the paragraph with this advice...
"but this works only if you are growing both beans and corn for drying, and can harvest by chopping the whole lot down at the end of the season"...as of course the Native Americans would too!

Now why couldn't she say that on telly. There must be thousands of people all over the UK growing a bed like this now, who will expect to use the cobs and beans fresh....the way we like to eat them.

"Welsh Girl" asked if it would work if you pinched out the bean tops. I haven't tried it so I couldn't say. If I ever do it again I'd use either short French beans, or train the beans up individual bamboo stakes. This year I was going to be growing s'corn and courgettes together and forgetting the beans. But having become interested in the controversy I am stirring up I think I'll try to do it with short beans....hoping they don't get smothered by the courgettes. I haven't enough bamboos to do the other suggestion. (Or....perhaps I might string a row of beans up through the s'corn bed. I'll give it some thought.)"

hope that helps someone...

keth
xx

[TEB]

Thats great info many thanks Kethry, this changes a lot of things now, luckily I haven't got the beans in yet

[Matt.]

My sweetcorn has had a 75% sucess rate (exactly 60 out of 80 sown) using fothergils swift. I didn't soak the seeds first just straight into compost cells in the greenhouse. Those that came did so within a week and are now healthy plants. I've not transplanted yet so fingers crossed they don't all keel over when I do.

[Alice]

Thank you so much for that information Kethry and welcome to the Vine. I've been puzzling how it was going to work and thought it was just me. I'll carry on with plan B.

[JennieAtkinson]

Yes that is interesting. I handn't planned to sow my beans for the three sisters until beginning of June as I assumed the corn would need a head start. My corn is about four inches high and beginning to put on a bit of weight in the stem.

Where I grew corn last year was a wasted space in the tunnel so I am really interested in trying to get as much packed in as possible. I suppose it would be possible to make sure the beans didn't take over by nipping out some of the big leaves and leaving the flowers? I think I'll still go for it, as I'm less confident about the squash growing underneath!

[Telford Grower]

Do you think it would be possible to train the beans not to wind round the actual cobs? never grown either before so I'm new to this but wanted to do the 3 sisters but now have concerns !