Growing Sweet Corn

Sweet corn varieties

Hybrid Fl varieties produce the sweetest kernels. Popular varieties include ‘Breakthrough’, ‘Golden Bantam’, ‘Honey and Cream’, ‘Early Gem’, ‘Early Chief’ and ‘Honeysweet’.

The latest plant breeding has produced enhanced sweetness, with ‘Supersweet’ being the forerunner.

What you’ll need to start growing sweet corn

Growing sweetcorn doesn’t require complicated equipment. Here’s what you need:

• Garden fork and spade
• Trowel
• Compost or soil improver
• Vegetable and herb fertiliser
• Liquid feed
• Sweet corn seeds

How to grow sweet corn

Cultivation

For growing sweet corn, choose a position that receives lots of sunshine and is sheltered from strong winds.

Sweet corn will grow in most soils, providing it is well drained, but holds plenty of moisture. Before sowing, improve the soil so that it is rich in nutrients and organic matter by digging in some well-weathered manure, compost or soil improver, then add a good dressing of a good vegetable and herb plant food.

Sowing sweet corn

Because sweet corn is pollinated by wind transfer of pollen, the plants should be grown together in a square or rectangular block, rather than a single row or dotted around the garden.

If you wait until after the last frost of early spring, you can sow seeds directly in the ground where you want it to grow. Sweet corn is one crop that seems to do better when direct-sown, rather than seeds being sown into trays for transplanting as seedlings.

Sow seeds at spacing of 45cm (18 in) apart in the block.

How to care for sweet corn

Water the soil thoroughly during prolonged periods of dry weather; this is vital when the plants are establishing and when they are flowering and the cobs swelling.

Liquid feed every fortnight when the plants start to flower and the cobs begin to swell.

If roots appear at the base of the stem, cover them with soil to improve plant stability in wind.

You can tap the plants when the male flowers (tassels) open to help pollination, as poor pollination will result in poorly filled cobs.

How to harvest sweet corn

When the silks (female flowers) on top of the cobs have turned chocolate brown, test the kernels for ripeness. Pull back some of the leaves that cover the cob and press one or two kernels with a thumbnail. If the content is creamy then it is ripe to eat. If the content is clear, the cob is unripe, so wait. If the content is solid, you've left it too long.

Cook as soon as possible after picking. Fill a pot with plain water (no salt) and you will taste perfect sweet corn! Avoid picking more than you need, since cobs that are left in the fridge for a day or two will gradually lose their sweetness.

Common sweet corn pests