Sweetcorn Harvest Dry & Hard

[PerryParticipant]

Thanks for a great video on sweetcorn harvest!

I had a couple of nice cobs to eat but the last ones are hard and dry, I don’t know if this might have something to do with the crop (grown against a south-facing wall) getting flattened by a storm in July, or maybe I have just left them too long, maybe they lacked water…? I only got one cob per plant which was also a little disappointing! I’m wondering if this be suitable for seed or should it go to the chickens?

I notice the farmers here in SW France plant corn much closer together than normal (around 10cm) and it withstood the storms much better than my crop, it also grows taller but this may be due to it being a different strain which I believe is grown for animal feed. Of course it just be that I need to try harder next year!

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[charlesModerator]

That is hard and you could cut the sweetcorn off to cook in water to make polenta.
Yes you simply left it too long.
Don’t grow it, there will have been cross pollination with any corn many km away including the farmers’ hybrids.
1 cob/plant is ok.
Farmers grow it close but their rows are perhaps wider apart, and they add a lot of fertiliser for 1 cob per plant.

[PerryParticipant]

Thanks Charles, I cooked a few kernels last night using the popcorn method, ended up with popcorn flavoured sugar puffs, lovely!

[charlesModerator]

Nice result Perry!

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