As a kid one of my favourite things to grow in summer was sweet corn. From planting the large seed and watching them grow quickly into plants that were taller than your head, then picking the cobs, peeling back the fresh husk to reveal a bright yellow sweet corn and then having them hot for tea with butter and salt. As a adult I still love growing sweet corn and as a family we all enjoy eating them, even though due to digestive issues I can only eat a small amount of sweet corn.
When and How to Sow your Sweet Corn Seeds
Sweet Corn is a summer crop and love the heat of summer, we like to sow our seeds in September. Sweet corn seeds can be direct sown or sown into seedling trays. We have had to sow our seeds into seedling trays which we cover to protect from rodents as they love the seeds. In fact this year we directly sowed our sweet corn seeds to only have them all eaten by rats and mice. We plant our corn at the spacing of 10cm apart and rows 30cm apart. We like to grow our sweet corn in the method of the 3 sisters.
Where to Plant your Sweet Corn
Sweet corn love the heat so they need to be planted in the full sun. We prepare the soil by adding some fresh compost, composted manure, slow release organic fertilser and blood and bone. We also mulch the soil with a thick layer a mulch as these are grown in the heat of summer and we don’t want them drying out.
Caring for your Sweet Corn
Sweet corn are a pretty easy to grow, once they are up monitor for pest and disease damage, then sit back and watch them grow.
Harvesting your Sweet Corn
Sweet corn normally take between 70-100 days before they are ready for harvesting. To check if a corn cob is ready look at the husks at the end of the corn cob and they should have turn brown and dry. To pick a cob pull down and twist.
Storing your Sweet Corn
We like to have corn on hand all year round so we blanched our sweet corn for about 2 minutes in boiling hot water then cooling straight down afterwards in cold water. Then we place on a drying rack until dry. Then we pack them into freezer bags and freeze them. We also cut the kernels off some and freeze.
Common Problems with Sweet Corn
Here are the problem we have come across when growing corn
Rats and Mice
This year has been a huge battle with them and struggle to keep them from doing too much damage. To control them we are using various types of traps, but we are working on a more permanent solution to control them.
Poor Pollination
Another issue we have come across only on the odd sweet corn is poor pollination. This generally isn’t a huge problem for us, but we generally have few cobs with empty or odd sized kernels. Sweet corn are wind pollinated from the tassels which is on top of your sweet corn to the silks on the end of your cobs. Some causes of lack of pollination are planted to far apart, in a single row rather than a block or planting in a sheltered environment so the wind cannot pollinate them, if this is the case you will need to hand pollinate.
Here are some other problems you may come across when growing sweet corn.
Aphids
These are small sap sucking insects found on new shoot or the underside of leaves. To control aphids you can spray them off with a garden hose, if the plants have a huge infestation it is recommended to spray with a white oil.
Slugs and Snails
Slugs and snails love to feed on the juicy leaves leaving their slimy shiny trail behind them. The easiest way to control them is to go out at night with a torch light, pick them off by hand and dispose of them. Here is how we control our slugs and snails.
Caterpillars
Caterpillars can burrow in from the silk end into your corn eating it from the inside out, monitor cobs if you notice the silks missing it will most likely have a caterpillar inside of it. If caterpillars are a problem you can spray them with dipel or cover your with insect exclusion netting.