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Friday, February 14, 2025

High ideas for rising sweetcorn


Rising your personal sweetcorn is a little bit of a revelation, as freshly harvested cobs style infinitely higher than something you should buy in a store. That’s as a result of the sugars start to show to starch as quickly because the cobs are picked, so the more energizing the higher! Whether or not you plunge yours straight right into a pan of boiling water, throw it onto a sizzling barbecue, or eat it uncooked, there’s nothing fairly just like the flavour of this sensational veg picked straight from the plant. 

Browse our full vary of sweetcorn seeds to see all of the totally different varieties you’ll be able to develop.

Methods to sow, plant and harvest sweetcorn

Sweetcorns growing in Suttons trial grounds
The sweetcorn grown underneath a plastic sheet is way taller than the row with out safety or mulch
Picture: Suttons trial grounds

Developed particularly for the UK local weather, many sweetcorn varieties develop vigorously to permit them to achieve maturity in our brief summer time season. Listed here are some tricks to get you began: 

  • Sow your sweetcorn seeds into small, particular person pots of fine high quality compost in April or Might. They don’t like their roots to be disturbed, so it’s greatest to not use seed trays. 
  • Put them on a heat, brilliant windowsill to germinate. 
  • When you’re rising a super-sweet selection, keep away from rising different forms of sweetcorn to keep away from cross-pollination. 
  • When you want to not faff about with seeds, order some sweetcorn crops and have them delivered on to your door. Raised in optimum situations, these top quality crops will get you off to a flying begin. 
  • Harden off younger crops for at the very least per week, however don’t transfer them out into their ultimate positions till June, or when all probability of frost has handed. 
  • If attainable, plant into soil that has been enriched with well-rotted manure the earlier autumn.
  • House your sweetcorn about 45cm aside. All the time plant in a grid sample, slightly than rows, or the wind received’t be capable to pollinate the crops. In the event that they’re not pollinated correctly, kernels received’t type on the cobs.
  • Sweetcorn prefers a sunny, sheltered location however likes its roots to remain cool and moist. 
  • For one of the best outcomes, water recurrently and add a thick mulch. You can even plant by way of a reusable plastic sheet. Toby (our Trial Grounds guru) not too long ago put some crops straight into uncovered soil and guarded others with plastic. These with their roots coated carried out dramatically higher, because the plastic locked in moisture and saved down weeds. 
  • As your crops develop, keep watch over the tassels. Once they flip brown, it’s time to softly peel again a husk to examine inside. 
  • Your sweetcorn is able to harvest if a milky liquid comes out of the kernel when pressed along with your thumbnail. 
  • Eat your sweetcorn as quickly as attainable after harvesting. The sweetness diminishes with age.

Finest sweetcorn varieties to attempt

Hand holding pale yellow sweetcorn
Sweetcorn ‘Eden’ has crisp, juicy, creamy-white cobs
Copyright: Rob Smith’s Allotment

We hope the following tips will provide help to to develop your personal sweetcorn in your backyard or at your allotment. For much more unbiased, professional recommendation on rising sweetcorn, learn what our favorite backyard bloggers should say on this useful article.

Picture: Sweetcorn (Natural) Seeds – Damaun from Suttons



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