Sweetcorn

I haven't had a good sweetcorn year since the first time I grew it, which was at 6 inch spacing. It seems like every time the pollen is about to drop we get a summer storm that sends it everywhere but the tassels!

Picked my first cobs yesterday. I've only grown Swift this year and the weather wasn't kind to them. I thought sweetcorn thrived in heat, mine didn't. Mind you, not a lot of plants did. Veggie did you bother with sweetcorn in the end?

No, I didn't bother and I might as well have not bothered with courgettes either. Its been a bad year for almost everything. Very disheartening.

Sweet corn is off the grow list until I have my other tunnels. My plants are only 2ft high. So I’m guessing I’m not getting any corn this year.

Picked my first cobs yesterday. I've only grown Swift this year and the weather wasn't kind to them. I thought sweetcorn thrived in heat, mine didn't. Mind you, not a lot of plants  did. Veggie did you bother with sweetcorn in the end?

They need lots of water and lots of nitrogen to thrive. My Swift have done OK but the cobs are a bit on the small side. Yesterday was the first time it rained here for what feels like a month.

Picked my first cobs yesterday. I've only grown Swift this year and the weather wasn't kind to them. I thought sweetcorn thrived in heat, mine didn't. Mind you, not a lot of plants  did. Veggie did you bother with sweetcorn in the end?

They need lots of water and lots of nitrogen to thrive. My Swift have done OK but the cobs are a bit on the small side. Yesterday was the first time it rained here for what feels like a month.

They've had the water, but not the feed, perhaps a note to self for next year.  Whilst the cobs are smaller, they still taste great.

Are sweetcorn that different from the maize grown round these parts which seems to have grown well with minimal rainfall this summer? Though they don't pick the cobs but silage the whole plants. The cobs are what gives the silage its protein. More and more grassland has been ploughed up for maize as they can then spread slurry from the big sheds housing the cows more easily in the winter.

Are sweetcorn that different from the maize grown round these parts which seems to have grown well with minimal rainfall this summer? Though they don't pick the cobs but silage the whole plants. The cobs are what gives the silage its protein. More and more grassland has been ploughed up for maize as they can then spread slurry from the big sheds housing the cows more easily in the winter.

The farmers round here grow quite a lot of maize too. This year it's on really sandy soil and looks to have done quite well. They usually rotate lettuce, spinach, carrots, potatoes and maize. I will have to check if they have any irrigation pipe set up next time I cycle past since I've never seen them water it, though you can always smell when they've spread slurry (they particularly like to do it on very hot days, I remember the stench being overwhelming a few years ago).