Growing Sweet Corn, Planting Sweet Corn, How to Grow Sweet Corn

The best tips for growing sweet corn in home vegetable gardens. Learn how to plant, water, and harvest sweet corn successfully in easy steps!

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The best reason for growing sweet corn is its sweetness, and delicious fresh flavor!

If you have never tasted freshly picked corn from the garden, you don't know what you are missing!

Much like fresh tomatoes from the garden, fresh corn tastes amazingly better than that what you can buy in a grocery store.

Also, if you blanch with boiling water, and freeze freshly picked corn from the garden, it will be the best frozen corn you have ever eaten.

My mom's frozen corn from her garden, which was always served at Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, is still remembered longingly by family members!

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Growing Sweet Corn History

There is an old saying that goes something like "you should have the cooking pot boiling before going out to pick the corn".

This refers to the fact that the sugars in corn convert quickly to starch effecting the texture and flavor of the vegetable.

For older varieties, that may have been the case, but breeding has produced sweet corn hybrids that are not only much sweeter than their corn ancestors but retain sweetness longer after harvest.

There are older varieties of open-pollinated corn that are flavorful and useful if you want to save your own seed.

Look for companies specializing in open-pollinated vegetable varieties, sometimes referred to as old-fashioned types.

Varieties called normal sugary or standard sweet corn include some open-pollinated kinds, but are more typically hybrids.

The development of sugary enhanced varieties contain modified genes that increase sugar content and retard the conversion of sugar to starch after harvest.

Growing Sweet Corn Varieties

Many of the sweet corn varieties have been on the market for years and have excellent sweet taste when picked fresh.

The drawback is they do not store well, becoming starchy during storage.

There are super sweet or extra sweet corn varieties that have been bred with a shrunken gene which produces an even sweeter vegetable with slower sugar-to-starch conversion after harvesting, giving it greater shelf life.

This super sweet variety needs to be planted in warm soil of at least 70 ° F.

How to : Growing Sweet Corn

The basic requirements when planting sweet corn include ample space, fertile soil, and adequate moisture.

The most common way of sowing sweet corn is to sow seed direct into rows when the vegetable garden bed is warmed between 60-70 ° F.

If soils are much cooler, seeds are likely to rot in the ground.

Depending on soil moisture at the time of planting, cover seed with ½ -3 inches of soil and tamp the earth over the seeds.

Planting Sweet Corn

Thin young plants to a foot apart.

When planting in hills, sow 4-6 seeds every 18 inches.

Thin plants sown in hills to to 3 plants each.

Corn is one of the few vegetable gardeners continue to mulch after the hilling is completed to conserve moisture.

How to Plant Sweet Corn

When plants are 6-8 inches tall, draw up soil around them for support.

Hilling can be done several times during the season.

Provide a side-dressing of composted manure mid-season.

Successive Plantings for Sweet Corn

We usually plant 3 successive plantings to extend the harvest time.

You don't want to have all of your corn ripe at the same time--unless you are planning to freeze or can corn one time only, and don't care about eating fresh corn on the cob.

Growing Sweet Corn : Tips for Watering Sweet Corn Plants

When corn plants have grown taller, if using a hose and sprinkler system, it is necessary to elevate the sprinkler to be sure that all the corn plants receive adequate water.

Harvesting Sweet Corn

The silk on the ends of the cobs will turn a bit dry and the kernels on the tips of the ears plump up when the ears are ready to harvest.

Peel back the husks from the very tips of a few ears to test for ripeness before picking.

Experience will teach you to spot ripening ears and to test for maturity by feeling the fullness of the whole ear of sweet corn.

We leave the decision up to you whether or not to have the cooking pot at a rolling boil before harvesting!

Growing Sweet Corn : Preparing Garden Corn for the Freezer

I usually had to go pick the corn, and help husk it outdoors.

Then my mom would blanch it for 2-3 minutes with boiling water, and then cool it quickly in an ice bath.

Then we cut the corn kernals from the cobs, put it in plastic freezer containers, and placed it in the freezer.

It was a lot of work, usually on a hot summer day; but it was worth it during the winter months whenever we enjoyed a side-dish of this delicious corn with our dinner.

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